My 40th college reunion is coming up. Yes, it's a jolt to the
system to realize that I've gone from a skinny young nerd to a skinny vintage
nerd in what seems roughly the amount of time it takes to play an
Orioles-Yankees game. I'm making the calls and sending the emails to my
far-flung (but "curated") group of friends, trying to decide whether
Baltimore in Springtime is all that appealing...or should we just wait for 50?
It can get a little hot in April in Charm City. In fact, it can
stay a little hot well into September. Along with hot, Baltimore has a
well-deserved reputation for humid. It excels at humid. This, along with
Chemistry, and, of all things, German, caused me briefly to wonder just what
the heck I was doing when my guidance counselor suggested Johns Hopkins and I
thought "Hopkins, wow, great idea, Cushing, Halsted, Osler, I'm going to
be a doctor!"
Reality can be a cruel mistress. Yet there was something besides
an absurd Heat-Index reading that was different about my first few days in
college—there was also the sound of ROTC candidates training in the practice
field behind my dorm. A reminder of Vietnam and a fate—perhaps my fate—rather
narrowly escaped.
If you didn't live through it, it might be hard to grasp the
turmoil, anger, and anxiety of the late 60s and early 70s. Turmoil, because no
one knew when or how the war was going to end; anger, at politicians who seemed
unable to find satisfactory answers; and anxiety—deep fear—that you, or a
family member would somehow find himself in a place that few wanted to be for a
cause in which many did not believe.
Richard Nixon had called for an all-volunteer army during the 1968
Campaign. Whether he actually believed in the concept or was merely using it as
a tactic is hard to say. But he was also looking for a way to defuse the
constant anti-war demonstrations. These, he thought, were led by middle and
upper-middle class families who were concerned that once their boys completed
their college deferments, they would be shipped off to die. Take away their
risk, and they would no longer care, allowing him to pursue his strategic aims
unencumbered by organized opposition.
