Draft induction, Vietnam War

NICKEL-PLATED ANGELS

The first time I saw Terry Hawkins, he proudly wore cowboy boots, blue jeans, a broad leather belt, a snap-button brown plaid cowboy shirt and a sweat-stained cowboy hat. He had eyes as blue as the Florida sky and a thatch of red hair like the top of a palm tree. He had a thin, sinewy form as a young farmhand should have had, so I perceived he was a true cowboy, even though we were in Florida.

Many people don’t know this, but the interior of Florida has a thriving cattle industry, both dairy and beef. In fact, Muddy Flats, Florida, was the center of a ranching community: 50,000 cattle and 10,000 people.

However, when I met Terry he was leaving his familiar range and heading for Miami, Florida, a place that rarely saw the likes of him. We had both boarded a Greyhound bus with tickets provided by the Selective Service Administration, otherwise known as the draft board. The year was 1968; the Vietnam War was at the height of its carnage.

Why was I in Muddy Flats? Three days before my student deferment expired, I had been hired to teach there, which qualified me for another deferment – teaching in a disadvantaged area. I had called my draft board immediately and was told to fill out the appropriate paperwork, which they would send me.

Before that paperwork could be processed, I received a notice to report for a draft physical in Jacksonville in September. I applied for a change to the draft center in Miami since Muddy Flats was closer to Miami. In October I received a second notice to report for a physical, in Miami in November.

On the appointed morning, my wife drove me to the Greyhound Bus Terminal; I showed the draft summons and was given a ticket. Carrying my small overnight bag, I boarded the bus for Miami and sat in a seat next to a window. I pulled out the paperback book I was reading, Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain, and settled in for the ride.

A few minutes later, a thin, muscular redhead in a cowboy hat stumbled on board and announced, “I’m going to Miami for the military exam. Where’s the other guy from Muddy Flats?”

I raised my hand. He came over, tossed his bag onto the luggage rack and plopped down beside me and offered his hand. “Terry Hawkins.” As soon as he said that, the bus with a roar pulled away from the station.

Although I could smell beer on his breath, I shook his hand. “Mike Stanover.”

He said, “I’m glad you’re not a nigger. I was afraid you’d be a nigger.”

Inside I cringed. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of my heroes, but I restrained myself since I would be riding next to the bigot for at least three hours.

“I knew you weren’t no spic ‘cause of your name.”

“I gather you don’t like Mexicans or Blacks.”

“I don’t. We’d be better off without ‘em. Don’t care for foreigners neither. Hate anyone that don’t speak English.”

“Miami’s got a lot of all of those.” My wife was an immigrant, half-Dutch, half-Latina. She spoke four languages.

“Hate Miami. Hate cities in general.”

“How much education do you have?”

“Dropped out of high school. Can’t stand college educated people. Hate teachers.”

“You work on a farm?”

“Ranch. Herd cattle. Fix fences. What do you do?”

“I teach at the high school.”

“Damn. Guess I stuck my foot in, didn’t I?”

“I’m college educated. Do you hate me?”

“Maybe not.”

“Did you get a draft notice?”

“Yeah, but I volunteered. The Marines.”

“That’s tough. You ready?”

“Yeah, I want it tough.”

“You’ll see plenty of fighting.”

“That’s what I want.”

“I’m just going for the draft physical. What made you decide to volunteer?”

“Want to fight for my country. Besides, I was getting drafted anyway.”

“You like Vietnamese?”

“Hate Gooks.”

“Do you know where Vietnam is?”

“Nope. Never been there.”

“From here, it’s close to halfway around the world.”

“Can’t grab that.”

“Do you know why we’re fighting?”

“Never thought about it. If I’m needed, I’m going.”

Before we finished our chat, Terry ran through all the groups that he hated a couple more times. The list seemed to include everyone on earth who wasn’t just like him. Then he decided to take a nap. Before that he asked about the book I had in my hands. “What’re you reading?”

“Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain.”

“Mark Twain? I’ve heard of him.”

“He’s most famous for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.”

“Heard of them, too.” Then he pulled his hat down over his eyes and napped.

By the light of the window, I finally read the first letter that Satan wrote to God about the planet Earth’s inhabitants:

"This is a strange place, an extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is sort of a low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the 'noblest work of God.'”

I glanced at Terry snoozing beside me. He was a piece of work. Did he have any realization that by going to ‘Nam that he was defending all the diversity that he despised?

He slept almost all the way to Miami and snored on and off. I nudged him awake as the bus stopped in front of a hotel on Biscayne Boulevard. “Hey, Terry, we’re here.”

He blustered awake, grabbed his bag and stumbled off onto the hot, humid, hard sidewalks of Miami. I followed him.

“Damn big buildings around here. I guess they got elevators.”

“Sure. Let’s go register.”

The lobby was huge, the size of a basketball court, with couches and chairs spread around over a red carpet. The lobby bubbled noisily with young men like us who were there for either a draft assessment physical or an induction physical. I led Terry to the front desk and handed my summons to the clerk, a short young Latina. Terry handed his over, too.

“Yes, Mr. Stanover, you are in Room 406. Mr. Hawkins, you are also in Room 406. Go right there and you’ll see an elevator on the right. You can take that to the fourth floor.”

“Damn, Mike, I guess they figured since we’re from the same town, they made us roomies.”

“Looks like it.” He wouldn’t have been my choice of roommate, but I could see the logic of it since we came from a small town. Neither the marines nor the army would have any idea that we had never met before that day, or that Terry was an uneducated redneck cowboy and long-time resident of the community whereas I was a college-educated newcomer, just the kind of person Terry hated.

Before we had taken a step, an amplified voice behind us shouted. “All candidates for draft or enlistment, pay attention.”

We turned toward the voice. An army sergeant stood with a bullhorn. “Supper will be served at six o’clock until seven o’clock in the restaurant behind me. You will have a choice of three main courses. You must be on time. If you are late or if you don’t like any of the choices on the menu, then you must pay for your own supper.

“After supper your time is your own, but I suggest that you get to sleep in your rooms by ten o’clock because breakfast will be served at six o’clock in the morning. Bring all your gear with you to breakfast. If you miss breakfast, you’ll be very hungry the rest of the day because the examination process with take until the afternoon. Once in the examination building, you will not be allowed to leave.

“You are now dismissed until supper.”

Some guys went to the sergeant and asked questions, but Terry and I wanted to go to our room. We found the elevator doors and pushed the button and waited as the elevator rattled down to us.

When the door opened, before us stood a stout, bespectacled, middle-aged Latino in black pants, white shirt and a red vest. The elevator was the old-fashioned kind with an operator. The operator nodded to us. We got in and I said, “Fourth Floor” and held up four fingers. The doors closed and the box began rising.

Addressing the elevator operator, Terry said, “Does this joint have a lounge?” The operator said nothing.

“Hey,” Terry said louder, “I’m talking to you.” He poked the man’s arm with his finger.

With a puzzled look, the man turned to look at Terry.

“What’s a matter? Don’t you speak English?”

“No hablo ingles.”

Glaring at the man, Terry fluttered his fingers around his throat and trilled a long guttural “r” that sounded like a dog growling. “r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.” That performance was his imitation of Spanish articulation.

I cringed again. I knew that a lot of the early refugees from Castro’s dictatorship had been professionals – doctors, lawyers, professors – in Cuba, but because of the language barrier, they couldn’t practice their professions in the United States, so they had taken any jobs available to them in order to support their families until they learned enough English and retrained themselves to pass the bars in a much different system. I suspected that the poor elevator operator might have been one of those; he seemed gentlemanly. If so, he was much more highly educated and cultured than the redneck clown who was humiliating him.

Mercifully, the doors opened onto the fourth floor. I stepped out and barked, “Come on, Terry. Leave the poor guy alone.”

Terry stepped out but yelled into the shutting doors, “Learn English, you spic bastard!”

I said, “He’s not Mexican. He’s Cuban. He fled Communism for the freedom in America. Give him a break. He’s just trying to earn a living.”

“If they come to this county, they outta [ought to] learn English.”

Our room had two beds and overlooked the boulevard and Biscayne Bay. I went onto the balcony to admire the view and saw that our balcony was joined with the room north of ours. The two inhabitants of that room were already out on the balcony: a tall one leaning on the railing, a short, thin one slouched in a chair. They said hello, so I went over to meet them.

“Hi, Mike Stanover. Are you guys part of the draft physical?”

“Sure,” said a tall brunette. “Name’s Dane Michaels.”

I shook his hand. “Drafted?”

“No, actually, I graduated from college and lost my deferment, so I joined the Air Force. I figured that’d be better than the army.”

“Wise move.”

Dane’s roommate was a scrawny dishwater blond. He said, “Doug Rivers. I’m drafted. I’m screwed. I’m hoping to fail the test. Haven’t eaten anything much for two weeks. Some guys pack in food to go over the weight limit. I figured I was too skinny to do that, so I’m trying to go the other way.”

“How’s that going?”

“Can’t say, but I’m hungry as hell and have lost seven pounds. Could eat a whole cow if I let myself.”

“Are you eating tonight?”

“I’ll eat and drink enough to keep me alive, but I want to be as weak as I can be by tomorrow.”

Terry came out onto the balcony. I said, “Let me introduce my roommate. Fellows, this is Terry Hawkins. He’s volunteered for the marines.”

In unison, the two from Room 404 said, “Ouch.”

Terry came over, shook hands, and introductions went around again. We all got chairs from our rooms, pulled them up so we could put our feet up, smoked cigarettes and talked about the war that was tearing the country apart. No one was crazy about the war, but we all agreed that the one thing we wouldn’t do was flee the country.

Terry remained quiet until Doug said, “So, Terry, what’re you going to do?”

“After dinner, I’m going to get drunk as hell and party like this is my last day on earth.”

“The marines are a tough outfit.”

“Well, if you’re gonna fight, you gotta fight with the best.”

Dinner was bland but filling. Dane and Terry and I cleaned our plates. Doug ate a couple bites of his steak and one small dinner roll and washed it down with water. The sergeant that we had seen with the bullhorn earlier came over and said, “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you eating?”

Doug smiled and said, “Guess I’m a little nervous. That always makes me queasy.”

“Well, get as much down as you can.”

“Maybe I’ll be hungrier at breakfast.”

When the sergeant turned to walk around other tables, we other three grabbed some of Doug’s food and put it on our plate and ate it.

When the sergeant came back around, he glanced at Doug’s plate and said, “That’s more like it.”

We returned to the balcony and decided to walk around downtown and get a beer somewhere. With his cowboy outfit, Terry was the oddball in the group; the rest of us could have arrived from any suburb in any city.

We hadn’t gone more than two and a half blocks when we saw a neon sign announcing “Bar.” We pushed the door open and went inside the narrow front into a dimly lit, smoky, alcohol-infused atmosphere. At the back of the bar came the clink of billiard balls.

We lined up along the counter and ordered beer, although Doug said, “I’m only drinking half; one of you can have the rest.” Then Terry ordered a shot of whisky, threw it down and blurted, “Who-o-o-wee!” loud enough so the seasoned bartender, who could sense trouble, gave him a quick glance.

Dane said, “Let’s sit over there.”

We followed him to a small square table and sat and sipped our beers, all except Terry, who stood at the bar and ordered another shot of whisky.

Dane said, “I don’t think Terry’s as gung ho about joining the marines as he pretends to be.”

Doug agreed. “Yeah, he seems to be washing that decision down with a lot of liquid courage.”

Terry strutted over and leaned down over my shoulder. “Mike, I want you to know that you’re the first college-educated person I ever liked.”

“Thanks. I’m glad to hear that.”

He straightened up. “I can’t sit when I’m drinking. Think I’ll play some pool. You guys want to play?”

Dane said, “I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m just going to drink this one beer and then head back to the hotel. It’s already nearly nine. We’re supposed to be in our rooms by ten.”

“Me, too,” said Doug.

“I think that’s the wise thing to do,” I added.

“Screw that,” said Terry and turned to wander to the back of the bar where the pool players smoked, drank and sent the wooden balls skittering around the green felt-covered tables.

Dane, Doug and I chatted about girls; I said I was married, and Dane said, “I’m getting married after my stint is over. We’re engaged.” Doug said, “I had a steady, but when I got drafted, I thought, why tie myself down until I get out. So we broke up. Then she told me she was pregnant. I said to get an abortion. She said she didn’t believe in it. So I said that if I made it through the war, I’d come back and see if we still cared about each other. She didn’t like that and told me to go to hell. I guess that’s where I’m going unless the skinny thing works.”

We finished our beers and sat there chatting and smoking when we heard Terry’s voice rise. “Goddamn motherfuckers!”

The bartender leaned over the bar and in a cautioning tone said, “Hey, fellows, you better calm your buddy down or I’m calling the cops.”

I rose and strode back to the pool tables where Terry strutted around like a fighting cock, his hat pushed back on his head. “Hey, Terry, what’s going on?”

Three guys, gripping their pool cues like pikes, stood together on the opposite side of the table. The tallest one said in a Southern drawl, “Y’all’s friend there is crazy.”

“This motherfucker is from Alabama. I can’t stand anybody from Alabama,” Terry growled.

“Well, you need to calm down. The bartender’s fixing to call the cops on you. You want to spend the night in jail?”

He pointed his finger at the tall one who had spoken. “I ain’t afraid of you.”

The tall one said, “Can’t y’all get him outta here? We don’t want no trouble.”

I said, “Terry, we’re going. If you want to fight, you’re going to have to take on these guys by yourself. Let’s go.”

He slowly backed away and followed me out. The bartender nodded thanks to me as the door closed behind us. Dane and Doug were already standing outside as Terry stumbled out into the garishly lit street. Dane said, “I can’t believe you talked him into coming.”

“He likes me, remember.”

Doug said, “But he likes whisky more.”

And to emphasize the point, Terry loudly launched himself into a couple strolling down the street. His tirade was unintelligible, but the couple winced and detoured around him. We three others crossed the street as if we didn’t know him.

He yelled after us, “Come on! Stay out and party!”

We waved goodbye, ignored his pleas, and kept walking.

Before Dane, Doug and I retired, we had one more smoke on the balcony.

When I fell asleep, the other bed in the room remained empty.

But I was roused from that sleep by a bumping noise and woke to see Terry stumbling into the room. I sat up and realized that all Terry had on were his jeans. Cowboy hat, boots, belt, and shirt – all were gone.

I said, “What happened to you?”

He mumbled, “I met a hooker. She took everything.”

“Money, too?”

“What I’m wearing is all I got.”

“Well, try to get some sleep.” I glanced at the room clock, which indicated 4:02. “They’ll be waking us in an hour.”

“Go back to sleep. I’ll be ok.”

I turned over and did just that, but at five the phone rang and I staggered up to get it. A woman’s voice said, “Five o’clock wake up call.”

I hung up and looked around. Terry’s bed hadn’t been slept in but it was missing a pillow. I heard the shower running. As I walked toward the bathroom, I saw the broken shards of a water glass on the carpet next to Terry’s bed. I looked in the bathroom and there lay naked Terry asleep in the shower, curled in a fetal position, a water-soaked pillow cushioning his head, the falling water splashing on his body, his foot dribbling blood. “Jesus!” I said and walked over and turned off the shower.

I shook him awake. “Hey, Terry, get up. It’s time to go to breakfast. Can you make it?”

He slowly raised himself, hobbled to his bed and fell on it and began snoring.

After picking up the broken glass, I took a quick shower, dressed and went over to shake Terry awake again. He mumbled, “Go on down. I’ll be down soon.”

Then the phone rang again. This time the sergeant’s voice, with a hint of anger, said, “Who’s this?”

“Mike Stanover.”

“Well, mister, you’re in big trouble for calling in the middle of the night and cursing the operator.”

“Ah . . . that wasn’t me.”

“The call was from your room.”

“It was probably from my roommate. He came in late and drunk. I was asleep all night.”

“Oh, what’s his name?”

“Terry Hawkins.”

“Put him on the phone.”

“He’s passed out on his bed.”

“Ok, just leave him be and come on down.”

I left Terry be and met Dane and Doug in the hallway. We rode down together. The operator wasn’t on duty that early, and his red vest hung on a peg in the cab.

Dane asked, “Did Terry make it in?”

“About four this morning. Drunk as a skunk and wearing only his jeans. Some hooker took everything else he had.”

Doug said, “If I were in his shoes, I might’ve gotten drunk, too.”

The lobby was bustling with sleepy young recruits and draftees, so we went over to the steps of the restaurant, whose doors were locked, and sat there.

Twenty minutes later, we heard the elevator open and the patter of bare feet. Around the corner staggered Terry in his jeans and the red vest of the elevator operator. He saw us and ran in our direction, tried to leap a couch, caught his foot, and executed a pratfall onto the red carpet. The crowd hushed, but he staggered up and made it over to the steps and sat next to me, said “Morning’, guys,” fell backward and began snoring again. His nose was bleeding slightly.

Dane said, “He does like you.”

We three laughed.

When the doors behind us were unlocked and opened, we rose and went in to breakfast, leaving Terry be on the steps where he slept. Doug took a couple bites of egg and ate a biscuit, but this time Dane and I scooped his food onto our plates before the sergeant made his rounds.

However, the sergeant never made the rounds. He and a corporal were stopped by Terry’s body spread on the steps, lifted him up, dragged him into the restaurant, sat him in a chair at an empty table, brought over a pitcher of coffee and began forcing the hot liquid into him.

After breakfast we boarded the bus for the testing center. A lieutenant came aboard and took roll, calling out our names to which we each shouted “Here!’ or “Present!” He called, “Terry Hawkins!” No answer. “Terry Hawkins!” He scanned the faces of the seated youth. Dane, Doug and I all raised a finger and pointed back toward the restaurant where the sergeant was still pouring coffee into our “buddy.” The lieutenant said, “Oh” made a mark on his sheet, finished calling the roll, and told the driver. “Ok, that’s it. Take ‘em away.”

The testing took until early afternoon. First was a paper exam testing knowledge and aptitude to see if we had the mental where-with-all to become soldiers. We had finished that and were waiting for the physical testing when Terry showed up escorted by two MPs in white helmets. A marine sergeant came out and took him into a private room for testing. He hadn’t seen us sitting at the rear of the hall.

The physical tests were to determine if we were strong enough, and could see and hear well enough, and were coordinated enough to be a soldier. I passed everything and my card was stamped temporarily1-A.

Dane and Doug passed, too – all 1-A material for slaughter. Doug grumbled about body-mass ratios.

I saw only one happy face among us tested: an obese boy who both wept and laughed as he received his 4-F status. Many of the others gave him a thumbs up and a thin boyish voice yelled out of the crowd, “You lucky son-of-a-bitch!”

Then we were loaded back onto the bus, which was going to drop us at the Greyhound terminal. Outside, a line of straight-backed young men stood proudly waiting next to another bus that had “Marines” painted on its side. Then we saw barefoot, shirtless Terry escorted by the marine sergeant, who was giving him an earful about being a marine and how he, Terry, was heading to Camp LeJeune just as he was because they would make him into a marine or kill him trying. He left Terry, like some weird end punctuation, at the rear of the line of Marines.

Our driver got in, closed the doors and revved the engine of the bus. Terry looked over and saw me looking at him from the window of the bus. He grinned and waved. I saluted him and mouthed, “Good luck.”

Our bus pulled out and that’s the last I saw of Terry Hawkins. I knew he wouldn’t have it easy in the military service as diverse as it was. All of us had had our lives detoured by the war; for years none of us would be doing what we had planned for our lives. I have often wondered if Terry Hawkins made it through the war, or if I would find his name on the black wall in Washington, D.C., among all the peoples he hated.

END

Of all my high school buddies, only one went to Vietnam.  He had been a hellraiser in high school and joined the Green Berets.  He was wounded seven times and returned to combat after recovering each time.  After he returned home, he spent a year surfing up and down the coast and doing drugs.  After that year, he had a religious experience and became a Christian preacher.  I lost track of him at that time, but I hope he's had a good life.
 
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