It was over 54 years ago that I enlisted...

It's nice to be thanked for my service, of course, but I never know exactly how to respond... beyond "you're welcome." That response is accurate but not even close to capturing my mixed feelings about the nearly three years I was in the Air Force. 

No need to rehash my many dumb choices (and a tiny bit of bad luck in the draft lottery), but once I was drafted, I was left with few choices. I don't swim, so the Navy was not an option. The Marines didn't appeal, mostly due to my not being gung ho in any way. The Army offered just two years of service, but a much higher chance of carrying a rifle in a rice paddy.

The Air Force, like the Navy, required a four-year enlistment, but the idea of four years doing something to support planes and pilots matched up quite favorably to a shorter commitment but with higher risk of being shot. 

Then, by sheer luck, my tech school graduating class (a "class" graduated every Friday after eight weeks learning the intricacies of base supply management) was dispersed all over Europe for our first duty assignments. The Friday before graduates all went to Thailand. The next Friday's class, I later learned, went to Vietnam. 

I have a few stories from the military, but none of them will end up in a movie and none involved much heroism, beyond simply surviving the quite natural fear and uncertainty of suddenly being at Lackland AFB in Texas, getting my head buzzed, learning to march, and enduring lots of creative criticism in very colorful language. 

I served two years at RAF Lakenheath in England, eventually becoming the base funds manager by default when the master sergeant who led our little unit retired. I was a college boy, after all, though I usually did not get into the details of my flunking out... which is what got me drafted in the first place. 

Kathleen and I had what I like to call a two-year honeymoon and returned to the States with a five-month-old baby girl. Then it was off to Grand Forks AFB for about eight months before the Air Force determined that it was overstaffed and offered "early outs" to thousands. 

So, after two years, eleven months, and 13 days, I was discharged. Somewhat wiser. A little older. 

So, maybe you can get a sense of my slight discomfort upon being thanked for my service. I was not a willing recruit to begin with, though I did what was required. I was not in combat, though there were some harrowing moments on the London Underground when things were really busy. I lived with my partner, lover and best friend for most of the experience.

I was clearly not a hero. 

But I guess most of the people who served in those last years of the Vietnam conflict were not heroes. Just people, brought together by circumstance, to live through their involuntary servitude before returning to the reality of civilian life. 

Some vets wear caps proudly proclaiming their units or service branch. 

That is not me.