The first person I ever voted for was Richard Nixon, which, I realize, makes me sound like one of John Boehner's ancestral forebears. But, my vote was for a very leftist ideal, i.e., ending a war. Nixon promised. He didn't deliver and I didn't vote for him the second time.
Not that I had a history of leftism. Being young and stupid and living in a W. Texas citadel of fundamentalist religious fervor (are there any redundancies there somewhere?), I had originally supported the war, not for any political reason, and certainly not based on any understanding of the historical struggles of Vietnam, but rather, because I had seen a bunch of war movies like "Hell is For Heroes" and the whole idea of being Steve McQueen with a pissed-off attitude and a burp gun seemed appealing, as juvenile as the idea seems now.
But then my cousin, a fresh-faced second lieutenant MP racing to save the U.S. embassy from small arms fire on the first day of the TET offensive in 1968, was blown to bits by some Viet Cong boys probably as young and naive, who had set an ambush in the alleyway that the MPs were racing down in the mistaken but understandable impression that they were bypassing the danger on the real streets. I think rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns of various calibers and make were involved, with the net result that the army strongly advised against an open casket ceremony to celebrate Steve's heroic defense of the American way, not to mention his all-too-short life.
His high school sweetheart wife Darla was left in quite a quandary. What to do with that Pontiac GTO whose stick shift she couldn't even manage, all those Roy Orbison albums, especially "Only the Lonely," which now had special meaning that she never would have dreamed back when she and Steve listened to it while cruising the GTO around Mack Eplen's of pink cookie fame, in a make-believe world wrapped up with Connie Francis, Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon and beaches.
Steve was a cousin by marriage, so my earliest memories of him were about 1960, when he was widely recognized in our little Junior High School as "Beaver" Braddock, owing to the unabashed grin featuring front teeth reminiscent of both the river rodent and the title character in our sitcom of choice, "Leave it to Beaver."
Steve and I worked together one summer for his dad "Buck" Braddock, doing the most unskilled labor known to concrete work, and sharing, I'm sure, the same prayer that the small cloud in the distance would at least momentarily cover the sun that was bouncing off the peeling, blistered substrate that passed for skin, the 103 degree rays only intensified by the perfectly still air that we breathed like fish gasping for water. Ahh, W. Texas.
The war came home to me when I heard the trembling voice of my aunt Ruth on the telephone - one of those heavy, black things that would break a toe if dropped - telling me of the tragedy that would break her husband, a veteran himself, would send him to drink and soon to the grave.
Me? I felt a surge of anger with no object other than whatever force of evil that had caused so much pain to my loved ones. It didn't occur to me at the time that this would take place over 50,000 times before it was over, and that was just here in America. It certainly didn't occur to me that the pain would be felt by millions more on the other side, and that the pain was exactly the same, no matter which side was allegedly doing God's will slaughtering innocents for "the greater good."
So, I did the only thing available to a college student with a history of deferments and an unreachable lottery number. I volunteered. I will never forget my bewilderment when told I had just failed the hearing test. I didn't understand it. Yeah, I have a little trouble with high frequencies, but even the folks down at the hearing aid store tell me I don't need a hearing aid. I remember the army technician who gave me the test looking me squarely in the eye afterward, saying to me, "Go back to school, get a degree...and...don't...look...back."
Well, I have looked back. Lots of times. And I think that technician had seen enough. Too much, in fact. I'm sure he couldn't get away with what he did on a regular basis, but he had sized me up and decided, for whatever reason, that I had no business in Vietnam. God bless him. Knowing my frame of mind, I would not have come back alive. He saved my life.
I visit Steve's name on the black wall from time to time. It takes a long time to find it among all the others etched into the granite, but I always do. I never see it without being overwhelmed with emotion. Always the tears streaming down my face in recognition that he was denied the life I have lived. And he and Darla denied the children I have enjoyed. And for what? Like the song says...absolutely nothin'.
The thought haunts me that maybe it was Steve who should have lived, not me. Maybe he would have made a real difference in the world...
When I think back on these things, I wish I could smoke marijuana to erase the 1960s for a few minutes. You know what? I wouldn't have the vaguest idea of how to get it. Steve wouldn't have either. I would feel stupid asking anyone about it. I'd probably feel guilty too. That's what comes from being raised in W. Texas in the 1960s. You'd feel perfectly innocent killing strangers whom you'd never met, but guilty as hell smoking pot to help ease the pain of actually having done it.
So, I'm sitting here, drinking cheap wine, burning incense from a box that says "cannabis," and listening to something called "electronica" on one of the cable channels I didn't even know existed. Surely the real thing is better than this.