the draft eight

 When I said that the watches appeared to run differently.  I didn't mean appeared in the sense that it only looked like they were running differently.  I meant that they looked different from the viewpoint of each guy, but both were valid.  The stationary guy would look all herky jerky to the traveler, and the traveler would look like he was doing everything in slow motion, though both would feel like everything was going normally for themselves.

But I think Beagles is in agreement on this.  In fact I find no disagreement with anything in your post.

Our only disagreement is that speed of time.  Speed is how far you have traveled from a certain point in a certain amount of time.  Time cannot travel from a certain point in space in a certain amount of itself.  Maybe it is better if we speak of the speed of the respective second hands which are indeed traveling from a certain point in a certain amount of time.  The speed of the second hand of the traveler appears to be (and is) moving slower than the second hand of the guy who stayed home.  Will that do the trick?

We haven't mentioned what is going on in Afghanistan, about which I have given much thought.  In a nutshell I think anytime we got out would be a tiugh time, but basically the sooner the better, staying longer was just throwing good money after bad.  The operation itself was a mess, and probably Biden should have done it better, and he probably should have admitted as much rather than act like everything was going fine.

But that brings up the subject of Al Gore.  Well not that directly but I will get around to it, but now I want to relate it to my experience with the draft.

I thought at the time that the war was wrong.  We were going there and killing people for no coherent reason.  Therefore the moral imperative was not to take part in it.  To allow myself to get drafted and be part of that mission would be wrong.  This is the way I felt at the time.

Al Gore, on the other hand, the son of a senator and intending to have a career in politics, and expecting that it would be bad for his career to be seen as a draft dodger, enlisted.  In retrospective an unwise move since four of the last five presidents (Obama was too young) have been draft dodgers. 

Here is the thing though, Al Gore was not a supporter of the war in  Vietnam, as such shouldn't he have done as I did, and dodge the draft?  This will be considered in subsequent posts.

 

Speaking of the draft, by the time Bob got busted I had gotten my fourth notice to appear for my physical.  When I had first registered for the draft at 18, my local draftboard had been at 63rd and Kedzie on the southwest side of Chicago.  After I left my boots on the quad my 2-S vanished and some time later I got my first notice to appear for my physical.  Ah but that was to appear for my physical in Chicago and by then I was living in Champaign.  So here was the deal, if you got a notice to appear for a physical but you weren't living in that place, you could send the draft board a letter with your new address and they would reschedule your physical and send you another notice in a couple months or so. 

 Marlene was the biggest reason I moved to Berkeley that winter, but another one was that I knew I would soon be getting my notice to appear for a physical in Champaign, but ah, what if I was living in Berkeley by then?  Another change of address, another rescheduled physical,  If I could keep this up long enough it just might work.  It just might work.

 I certainly knew by now that my move to move Bob's shoes from under Marlene's bed wasn't  going to work, and things were getting a little nasty at Dottie's.  There was a note on the refrigerator that certain foods were not to be eaten because they were for Dottie's lunch, you know, at work, where she had a job, unlike you.  And there was a note by the front room door which listed the chores for the riff-raff,  who would do the vacuuming, who would do the mopping, the dishes.  Of course Dottie was already long gone by the time we woke up, so we just waved at the list as we went out the door.  Still we felt a little guilty.

 So then I was back in Champaign pouring beers at the Wigwam again, and my buddies had found this great big old house and we drank beer and smoked pot and laughed and laughed and it seemed like it would never end, and then I got my notice to appear for a physical in Champaign.

 There didn't seem to be anyplace else to go, and I was having such fun in Champaign, and maybe at some point the army would catch onto this moving around thing I had going, so maybe I should make a stand.  Maybe I should quit running and stand fast and flunk my physical.  Others had done it, so would I.

 I wasn't in school anymore, but I went to see that shrink guy in the student services building.  We both knew why I was there, but I made a little small talk before asking, "Um, do you think I'm psychologically fit for the army?" as if it were just a casual question, like did I think the Cubs would win that afternoon. 

 He wrote me the letter.  He called me a sociopath, which sounds pretty bad these days, but then I think it just meant someone who doesn't get along with society.

 I had bad nearsighted vision.  I left my glasses at home.  I had a cough.  I chain smoked for a week before the physical.

 The physical was in Chicago in the morning, and the bus up there left at 4 AM.  I took some amphetamines and I drank as much beer as I could get down.

 This last was kind of a mistake because it turned out that there was no toilet on the bus.  And even as I gritted my teeth the thought came to me that all I had to do was pee in my pants right then and there,  Surely the army would never take somebody who peed in their pants (in retrospective I believe they would have, but it's not what I believed then).  The whole problem would be gone.  I would have passed from those who have the draft in front of them to those who had the draft behind them.  Oh sure afterwards telling people (especially girls) that I got out of the draft by peeing in my pants wouldn't have the same cachet as telling them that I was suicidal and maybe was thinking of killing random people, but still I would've been out.

 But I couldn't do it.  It was the other guys, sitting silent in the dark bus (nobody was bragging about shoving a knife down a Viet Cong's throat, let me assure you),  The thought of my pee sloshing forward when the bus slowed, sloshing back when it speeded up, to either side on curves, and those dark silent depressed guys lifting their feet when it came their way, and looking back and maybe whispering in my direction.  I couldn't do it.

 When the bus finally got to where the physical was being given there were a bunch of protesters out there to greet us.  They had Country Joe and the Fish's I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin-to-Die-Rag booming from loudspeakers.

 And it's one, two, three,

What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

 They were dancing and playing kazoos and handing out peace candy and commie literature.  We packed our pockets with peace candy and commie literature.  Look army guys, I'm just like them.  I eat peace candy and I'm a commie.  You don't want me in your army do you?

 Tell it to the Viet Cong, Jack.