I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1966. 1 was 17 years old. Under what was called a delayed enlistment program, I actually signed the enlistment contract two months before I finished high school, though I didn't leave for boot camp (basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina) until I graduated. I knew I would go to Vietnam—I wanted to go—and my recruiter, a Staff Sergeant Robert Bookheimer, assured me that I would. (Whatever else you or I might have to say about Bookheimer, he was an honest man; he told me nothing during our long discussions that did not turn out to be true. As I have gathered from friends, acquaintances, and a great deal of reading since, he was a rarity among military recruiters.) And I did indeed go to Vietnam, where nothing I had anticipated happened, and everything I never dreamed of came true. But that's another story.

Most people who learn that I've been to Vietnam, but who haven't yet been told the details, invariably assume that I was drafted. Not an unreasonable assumption. After all, relatively few bright, "college material types" willingly enlisted in the military—certainly not in the mid-60's, when student deferments from the draft were readily available—though many did accept their draft notices if and when they got them rather than choosing the alternatives of prison or exile. Enlistment was the choice of only juvenile delinquents, blue-collar kids, and dimwits.