The other morning, as I was taking my shower, I had my music set on shuffle, and the song, Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison popped up.
My memory associated with Brown Eyed Girl was immediate and powerful. It’s 1969, and my high school friend, Nick Luxon, and his girlfriend, Corrine, are visiting me and my girlfriend, Pat, in New York City. In a few weeks, Nick would be shipping out to Vietnam. Before leaving the States, he wanted to see Wall Street, a mythical place where he hoped to work one day. Even though it would be closed down completely on a Saturday evening, Nick insisted we all go just to see it.
After our tour and a few photos in front of the Wall Street statues, we dropped into a small bar to have a drink or two. There, performing was a solo singer with a distinct Northern Irish accent. Our group talked so much that we didn’t really pay attention to the singer. We enjoyed him, gave him a hand, and a small tip. Only on our way out did we learn that his name was Van Morrison. There were probably about 20 people in the bar at that time. Nobody made much of a big deal about Van.
The memory is so hazy. I remember it happening, but it’s hard to pull up the details. What did he sing? Was he playing by himself or with a band? Luckily, since I am still friends with Nick 55 years later, I was able to ask him if he had the same memory. I was afraid I was making the whole thing up, but he confirmed that we were there and that it happened pretty much the way I remembered it.
Thinking back to those days in 1969, I also remember the terrible choices facing us. We all had to encounter the prospect of being drafted into the armed services and the possibility of then being sent to Vietnam.
In the summer of ‘68, Nick, our good friend Jeff McDonald, and I spent many hours drinking Strohs and discussing what we would do. Our choices were limited and, as far as we could see, none of them were good. We could:
Allow ourselves to be drafted.
Enlist, having to go longer, but maybe getting a better choice of assignments
Seek a conscientious objector status
Find someone of influence who could get us a place in a reserve unit.
Find a way to fail our physical.
Go to Canada, where there was no draft.
Take our chances on a possible draft lottery (which eventually would be held at the end of 1969).
We all had fathers who had served willingly in World War II. My father was not in favor of me going to fight in the Vietnam War. Nick’s father and family were strong patriots who believed in serving your country, no matter what. And Jeff’s father didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
Within a few months, we each made our own decisions:
Nick enlisted in the army.
Jeff got his conscientious objector status.
My teaching deferment had run out, and I had passed my physical, so my only hope was a draft lottery, which had been announced for November 1969.
(it’s interesting for me to think about this from a historical perspective: I was born in 1946, just about the same time as George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Donald Trump, who all made their own choices.)
At the time, we knew our choices were very consequential. However, I don’t think we realized just how consequential they were.
Nick served valiantly in Vietnam, where he was wounded falling on a punji stick, covered with human excrement. After a brief hospitalization, he was sent back to the front. While he earned a Purple Heart, his injuries have cost him pain and physical difficulty for the rest of his life. He now devotes his time to helping fellow Vietnam veterans, many of whom have struggled with physical injuries and severe PTSD.
Jeff spent his years in Lansing, serving as an orderly at Sparrow Hospital. During those two years, he met his wife and got married.
I lucked out and received draft number 278, which was high enough for me to be able to avoid the draft. I was able to apply to and begin graduate school.
I believe the path was most difficult for Nick. The war was so contentious that riots about our involvement broke out on campuses across the country. Rather than soldiers being honored when they came home as they were after World War II and as they are today, soldiers returning from Vietnam were vilified.
I was texting with Nick today and he remembered those terrible times. “As bad as it was being shot at in the jungle by the Viet Cong, it was worse to be spat on and shouted at when I returned home. It seems like people saw us as killers and losers, and less than human.”
For me, the songs from that era pack an emotional punch. Sometimes it’s the introductory guitar riff, other times it’s the words, but the song never fails to evoke powerful memories. I can close my eyes and be back there fully present. As Trisha Yearwood sings, the “song remembers when.”
