I had been drafted. It happened because I decided to take a semester off from college and the college notified my draft board immediately and since in those were the days before the draft lottery and I was from an upper middle class community I was next. The woman who ran the draft board told my father, they were friends, and he told me. That was my Christmas present in 1967.
I told my girlfriend and she cried saying I was going to be killed in Vietnam. She was a war protestor and tried to talk me into going to Canada but I liked the idea of going into the service. I was 19 and when you're that age you feel like you'll live forever. Years later I'd tell people I was young and dumb in those days with an emphasis on dumb.
In early February 1968 I was working at a service station pumping gas. The gas at our station was thirty cents for regular and thirty-four cents for premium. We pumped a lot of gas while the owner worked on cars.
He had been working on a 67 Mustang GT and when he finished he asked me to deliver it to the woman who had brought it in. It had a four on the floor and a 352 cubic inch engine. It was every guy's wet dream in automobile parlance.
I knew the house where I had to deliver it. It was in the most affluent part of town. Even though it was almost noon that day when I got to the house the woman who answered the door was wearing her nightgown and a bathrobe. This was not one of those heavy cotton bathrobes but a long flowing lightweight robe. It shouted class. The woman, Mrs. Andrews, was a statuesque brunette. I am six feet tall and she was at most an inch shorter than I. Even though she was in her late 40s, 48 I found out later, she was extremely good looking. I had seen her playing at the tennis courts regularly so I knew she was in pretty good shape. She had these flirtatious eyes and luscious lips. Even at my young age I noticed such things. When I saw her I had visions of Mrs. Robinson from the movie "The Graduate" in my head. Yes, my hormones were raging, as they seemed to constantly do.
"Oh hi Peter," she said.
"I brought your car Mrs. Andrews," I replied. I had been her paperboy a few years prior so that's where she knew me from.
"Oh thank you. Please come in," she said smiling sweetly. "I was just having breakfast. Would you like some?"
"No thank you ma'am."
"Well would you like a cup of coffee or something?"
"Sure, coffee would be nice. It's awfully cold out there today."
"Good," she said as she lead me to her kitchen. "Just sit there," she said pointing to the island in the middle of the kitchen, "how do you take it?"
"Milk and sugar thank you," I replied as I sat.
"I should probably call your boss and tell him I'm delaying you," she offered. "I still need to shower and get dressed and you know how long that can take." Actually I had little idea of how long that could take where my contact with women had been limited to high school girls. As she called him I feared he'd offer to come out and get me which would get in the way of my leering at Mrs. Andrews. She had been the object of my lusts when I was her paperboy and here some six years later I was finding not much had changed.
When she got off the phone she said, "All set. He offered to pick you up but I told him not to bother since I know how busy he is and being one of his best customers I prevailed of course."
"Thank you."
As we sat there, she finishing her breakfast and I sipping my coffee, we went over what I had been doing since she last saw me and that I had been drafted.
"Can't you get a deferment of some sort? Aren't you in college?" She asked showing concern.
"I was in college but I wasn't doing too well so I took a semester off to get my head together."
She sighed and said, "It's just terrible what's happening over there. I'd feel terrible if anything happened to you."
I was a little taken aback by her concern. She didn't really know me that well and yet she was showing a lot of concern and I didn't know what to do with that.
"I'll be all right. I got into flight school so it's not like I'll be in the infantry or anything."
She paused and I could see the concern on her face. Than I saw a single tear appear just below her eye. "I'm sorry," she said dabbing her eye with her napkin, "the son of a friend of ours was killed last month. He was married and has a child on the way. It's all just so senseless." I could hear the anger in her voice and it quieted me.
She got up and said, "Would you do me a favor. There's a box in the front hall. It's rather heavy. Would you be a darling and bring it upstairs for me."
"Sure, I'd be happy to," I said glad that the subject had changed.