VETERAN’S DAY REGRET [M, 11-11-24]

 BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—VETERAN’S DAY REGRET [M, 11-11-24]

 

One of my semi-regrets is that I did not serve in the military. No, I did not have bone spurs, like some people claimed to get out of military service.

I certainly expected to be in one military branch or another. I grew up during the draft. Unless you had some excuse, like a bad heart, or you were a preacher, you automatically had to serve two years. I was in good health, and certainly didn’t intend to be a preacher.

If you didn’t volunteer for the branch you wanted, the Selective Service just told you where to go. My eyesight wasn’t bad, but I wore glasses, so I figured the Air Force was out. Also the Navy, since I couldn’t swim and didn’t want to. Probably the Marines, since my beloved Uncle Johnny had been a Marine in WWII. But the Army would be okay. Uncles Randall and Bob and Mike had been in hard combat in WWII.

Those WWII guys were real heroes. Not the way we say "hero" now, just anyone who wears a uniform, but men, some very young, who asked not what their country could do for them, but did what they could for their country, regardless of the cost. I wanted to be like them. I think all boys did.

When I was starting high school, several of the junior and senior guys joined the National Guard. They said it was easy money. They just drove thirty miles to the armory at Evansville once in a while and marched around. Then Korea. Their Guard unit was activated. They went to Korea. Hadn’t finished high school. Some just seventeen. Some did not return, and those who did became criminals and wife beaters.

I was too young for Korea and too old for Viet Nam. Besides, by the time Nam came up, I was married, with two children. And I was a preacher.

In high school, I thought I had totally suppressed my promise to God that I would be a preacher if “He” would save my sister’s life. “He” did. I didn’t. So I went to college to become a newspaper reporter.

In my college, though, all male students had to take two years of ROTC. IU had both Air Force and Army ROTC, but we didn’t get to choose. I was assigned to the Army.

I liked it. Uniforms and ranks and orders were right up my alley. I was gung ho. I became the ROTC unit’s DFMS, Distinguished Freshman Military Student. I joined the elite Pershing Rifles. I was going to do four years of ROTC and be an officer in the regular army. Career man. RA all the way.

Then, in the summer before my sophomore year, my deal with God caught up with me. By the time I returned to IU for my second year of ROTC, I was a preacher with three churches. I was no longer interested in a military career, or even ROTC.

The cadre, the teaching officers, didn’t understand, and I didn’t want to tell them. It seemed a bit shameful to drop out of the military, because that’s what it was—dropping out. Even my Selective Service status changed. I was no longer draftable.

Sure, I could have volunteered, but we were without a war then. Korea was done. So what was the point? I was headed for three years of graduate theological school after IU. Besides, I had met a really cute girl. My future was marriage, not military.

I have always honored military folks, active and retired. I tried to be a helpful and understanding pastor to veterans. Sometimes I tried to support soldiers by opposing wars, In the words of Pete Seeger, “Support our boys in Viet Nam, bring them home, bring them home.”

I’ve always been a realist follower of Reinhold Niebuhr about war, though. I’d like to be a pacifist, but I can’t. There are times when you have to oppose evil with force.

On a day like today, though, at all the concerts, the band will play the songs of each of the military branches, and those who served in that branch will stand. I will hum along. I know all the words to all those songs, the WWII words and the more modern versions, too. I say a word of thanks for all who have served, especially those, like the older high school boys I admired, who did not return from war. And I feel a bit of regret that I can’t stand during one of those songs.

John Robert McFarland