It’s as if I
had this inoculation at my swearing-in.
I was given
an invisible injection which allowed
me to make
it successfully through my enlisted
three-year
hitch in the Army.
Had I
re-enlisted and gone any longer, I doubt if
things would
have continued to be as rosy for me.
The three-year
vaccine did its job most effectively
as I managed
to stay alive and keep my nose clean.
I excelled
at my job which afforded me the optimum
rank
possible for my term of service. I have this gut
feeling that
had I re-enlisted, things would have turned
out far
differently for me.
Who knows,
had I survived the perils of the time and
made a
career of the military, I may have attained the
rank of Sergeant
Major. But there was this Viet-Nam
Thing going
on.
There may be
today an expended AK-47 round rusting
in the
ground, a bullet which took aim with my name
on it. Fortunately,
I didn’t raise my hand for a vol-
untary extension
of my term of service.
And that
seat on a plane headed for Saigon was oc-
cupied by
some other misfortunate G.I. Be all that
as it may,
it was a long time ago, and civilian life
turned out
all right for me.
I am alive
here and now to talk about it, proud I ser-
ved the term
I did, yet fortunate I did not re-enlist.
And no,
those Sergeant Major stripes were never
meant for a
liberal-minded, free spirit such as I.
And that
vaccine which kept me safely on an accep-
table course
while in the Army was only effective
for a three-year
term of service anyway. It certainly
did its job,
while enabling me to do mine.
I have been
told that pneumonia shots last for five.
Chris
Hanch 9-20-15
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