This past Sunday, Bob Stroud did part 3 of his annual salute to summer forty years ago on his Rock and Roll Roots show on WDRV in Chicago. He almost slipped it by me as I was expecting it this coming weekend, but we had those five Sundays this past month.
Again, these songs REALLY took me back, and that summer I was going through one of the roughest and hardest times of my life in the form of the United States Marine Corps. Since it didn't appear that the Vietnam War was EVER going to end, it started when I was in junior high and was still going strong as I was preparing to be a junior at the University of Georgia, I had decided that I might as well beat Uncle Sam to it and sign up to be an officer before I got drafted when I graduated. My draft lottery number was 22 and I was definitely going to Vietnam, regardless.
I was against the war because I thought we weren't trying to win it. And I had no intention to go to jail or leave the country and that war just was NOT GOING TO END.
As such, I signed up for the Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class. I was to go to six weeks basic training between sophomore and junior years and then another six weeks the following summer. Upon college graduation, I would be commissioned a second lieutenant, go to six months of training and then to Vietnam.
I figured if I was going, I might as well go as an officer.
Six Fun-Filled Weeks at Q-Town Coming Up next. --RoadDog
GROANER: Where do you find a dog with no legs? Right where you left him.
Being an account of some things I'm interested in, what I'm doing, and reflections on my past, especially music.
Listen to this man. Seven years of college, you know. Trying to reason with 2020 and, now, 2022.
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