Three years before my days in Vietnam I worked in a machine shop. It was only a summer job between school years in college. Didn't know what waited for me up the road. I recall we had a contract to make primers for 105mm howitzers. 'Spose I could see some kind of irony in that but choose not to. For me it was just a way to make a buck and a half an hour with lots of overtime. Hot summer. Most of us ate lunch out in the parking lot to cool off under a ninety degree sun. Could be all the machine oil that soaked my skin in the heat of '66 also sealed me off from agent orange.
The business was already old school back in the days we now consider old school. The machinery seemed in good shape though the building that housed it was probably built at the beginning of WWII, maybe earlier. That we were making armaments didn't phase me a bit. What did catch my attention was loading the machine I worked. Every twenty seconds a finished part had to be removed and a new one inserted by hand. A little slow and I'd either miss a load or get a machine carved finger. It was a rare hour that I didn't miss a few loads. Not sure if it was 'cause I wasn't fast enough or simply cautious.
Looking back on that year it seems to me I was just biding my time. Treading water till my life found its course. That happened the next summer when I bought my first car. It was my brother who kick started my life. He worked at a car dealership, found me my wheels then a couple of weeks later got me a summer job running cars from the lot to the mechanics. Good job, decent money and opened me up to possibility. A car'll do that.
Back then the Domino Theory ruled the government's efforts in the world. Should we give up on a country such as South Vietnam it'd lead to a chain of events with one country after another falling to Communism like toppling dominos. Don't know if that was true but my life sure followed the pattern. The car led to me getting a driver's license. Then to a job. Then to dropping out of school for a quarter. Falling in love. A dead end. Volunteering for the draft. Training, Vietnam and marriage. All in a little over two years. A story no doubt told a million times back then. Seems like a bunch of us grew up fast. Went from the supposed, carefree teenage years of the mid-sixties to carrying a load of guilt and confusion in the blink of an eye. Then came home as outsiders.
And even today it feels like we're still pariahs. Not a president served in Vietnam. Or Korea for that matter. I'm not bitter about it but sure feel it says something about our country. I'll let you be the judge as to what that is.
