Given the era we grew up in, I was surprised to learn that apparently our class lost no members in the Vietnam war. I asked at the 40th Class Reunion and no one was aware of any casualties.
There was one death in the DHS Class of 63. Franz Kolbeck was a member of our class when we were all united in one class our freshman year. If you met Franz once you would remember him. Well over six foot and around 250 lbs.
Suprisingly, out of all the Classes from that Era, at DHS we only lost four in that mistake of a war.
Perhaps our class suffered no casualties because we were able to avoid combat roles one way or another - deferments, National Guard or Reserve units, etc. By and large, the war in Vietnam was fought for all the wrong reasons by all the wrong people. 'When the rich war, it's the poor who die.' Dick Cheney got multiple deferments as a student and when those ran out he got his wife pregnant. 'W' with lots of political pull, got a position in a national guard unit that had no possibility of fighting in Vietnam - its planes were for high altitude air-to-air combat. Of course, he was generally AWOL anyway.
Me? I was not much different. I was classified 1-Y, the 1960's equivalent of 4-F. It saved me the difficult decision of whether to move to Canada. Anyone else?
Many of our class served honorably. You dishonor those who went and returned George. HPHS has many great men who served from General Wainwright to Stansfield Turner and the Viet alums who went and returned. I am glad we lost none.
Many of our class served honorably. You dishonor those who went and returned George. HPHS has many great men who served from General Wainwright to Stansfield Turner and the Viet alums who went and returned. I am glad we lost none.
Paul:
Farthest from my mind was dishonoring those who served, whether volunteer or draftee. Indeed, I have a son who is currently serving in the Marines. I intended the comment to relate only to the absence of fatalities and a possible reason therefor. I too am glad that we lost none. To the extent that my comment was interpreted as showing disrespect, I apologize for my inability to make myself crystal clear.
Many of our class served honorably. You dishonor those who went and returned George. HPHS has many great men who served from General Wainwright to Stansfield Turner and the Viet alums who went and returned. I am glad we lost none.
Indeed. George forgets that Bobby Kennedy was ragging the heck out of Nixon with that same stale 'Rich Man's War' line. Ultimately it forced Nixon to introduce the draft lottery.
I had gone through college with a 2-S student deferment but regularly been called up for physicals. When I was about to graduate (1968) I was called for another one and the handwriting was on the wall. I had planned to take a little vacation before starting my job at IBM in Minnesota, but contacted them and asked if I could start immediately after graduation. On my first day I asked the Personnel department to write a letter to the draft board requesting a Critical Skills deferment, which was granted.
About a year-and-a-half later thefirst lottery was instituted, in 1968. I remember the day well. I was washing dishes in my apartment not paying attention to the TV which was on when I heard my birthday. (You know how you can be ignoring a nearby conversation and all of a sudden you decode your name being enunciated? It works the same with your birthday.) My head swiveled around and I heard 'June 13. 69.' (Well, somebody had to get that number.)
There was no fax in those days, nor email. It took a while for the draft board to mail and a while for the response to be returned, just inside the deadline. I repeated my request for a deferment, they requested employer confirmation, IBM stated that they only made a deferment request once and I had used mine, but they would verify my employment. I carried this on for about a year, then finally ran out of excuses. I was living about 300 miles from Waukegan and about 300 miles from Winnipeg. What to do? I thought about it for a few minutes and decided I had to serve. I closed down my job, my wife and I moved all the furniture to storage and I reported for service.
Fortunately the Army decided to take advantage of my civilian-acquired skills and after basic combat training I was assigned to White Sands Missile Range where I served two years as an Electrical Engineering Assistant, MOS 01B.
Funny thing about this: My mother and stepfather were very active in Lake County politics, as was my stepfather's family. I was drafted at the same time as my stepcousin, Rusty Scheskie (I think he went to Deerfield High School.) and we went through basic training together. We always assumed that there were members of the opposing party on the draft board.
Given the era we grew up in, I was surprised to learn that apparently our class lost no members in the Vietnam war. I asked at the 40th Class Reunion and no one was aware of any casualti
Larry, as far as I know you are correct that we didn't lose anyone from our class in Viet Nam. Sadly, however, Kerry Green from our Class of 1963 lost his older brother Jeff Green in Vietnam who graduated several years before us.
I know there were many people in our class who seved in Viet Nam, including mysefl. I was drafted as soon as I graduated from college IN 1968 and sent to Viet Nam in the 101st Airborne Dvivison IN 1969.
About twenty years ago I was at a meeting held at a high school a little smaller than Highland Park in Spokane WA and they had a memorial with twenty two names of those lost in that horrible mistake of a war. For such a pro-war Republican area the Park Cities found it too inconvenient to serve their country or die for it. How many are doing their third tour in Afghanistan today?
I served tours in 69' and 71' after graduation from Purdue in 67' and Navy ROTC. I am also glad that no one in our class died over there. I returned in October of 2013 to visit my old haunts. One of my ROTC Classmates died in TeT 68'. It was good to go back for closure. The people are very friendly but profoundly poor. I have American Vietnamese friends and have learned so much from them. We all need to travel to the 'third world', make friends and learn about what really matters. I didn't make the reunion because I didn't have to money with the Vietnam trip coming up. See you all next reunion.
