https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/opinion/2020/11/i-joined-the-navy-it-was-an-obligation-to-participate-accepted-by-all-opinion.html
I joined the Navy. It was an obligation to participate accepted by all | Opinion
Updated 11:09 AM; Today 11:09 AM
U.S. Navy op-ed
Published in Newark Star Ledger and Associate publications
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By Express-Times guest columnist
By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist
By Charles E. Kraus
On Veteran’s Day, I think back to 1966. This is how I happened to enlist.
You eat because you are hungry, or because it is mealtime, or your grandmother went to all the trouble to bake the cake and even though you hate carrot cake, you love her. You enlist during times of war because you are patriotic, or – you’ve seen too many movies that glorify war, depicting battle as a thrill.
Or maybe you’ve had an argument with your girlfriend, accumulated insurmountable debts, have been living an appalling life – in rural Nowhere, or in Urban Hell, and you need a correction. Perhaps, granddad and dad had distinguished military careers and tradition demands that you wear the uniform. Maybe you are trying to become a witness – to war, to peace, to various approaches to being alive.
Only that last one rings a few bells in my profile, though I’ll probably never truly understand why, as my sophomore college year concluded, I went to visit the Navy recruiter.
My military intentions, or more accurately, fantasies had little to do with battle. Unlike my father, I’d never been a party to, nor would I ever participate in a brawl or any form of animosity requiring more than attitude and language. Most of the authors I’d read came out of the Second World War. The military helped form some of them.
The “Adventures of Wesley Jackson,” “The Naked and the Dead,” “Catch 22,” “From Here to Eternity,” “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “The Caine Mutiny,” as well as the play I’d done in summer stock, “Mister Roberts,” were versions of military life filed away in my head.
No one I read or knew liked being in uniform, but the obligation to participate was accepted by all. My uncles told amusing tales of their active service days. Dad, turned down by the Navy because he was half an inch too short, walked next door and enlisted in the Merchant Marines. Being an adult male meant you had polished a few war stories and incorporated them into your repertoire to be repeated again and again around the dinner table, generally told with a twinge of nostalgia.
My decision to enlist was made easier because the recruiters offered attractive extras. I’d had two years of college. That meant I qualified for a rank of Seaman First Class, two bumps up from lowly Seaman Recruit. In addition, the Navy had a wonderful enlistment option. I could sign the papers now, but postpone induction for three months.
To qualify for the three-month deal, I’d need to agree to a four-year hitch rather than the usual three-year commitment. Hell, four was just another number. Two, three, I was young and life felt endless. Endless minus four years was still endless. Agreeing to this deal meant the consequences of my rash decision to join the military wouldn’t go into effect until the end of the summer. Three months only took three months, and as the next scene opened, there I was on a train heading from New York City to Navy 101 Boot Camp, Michigan.
My four-year military career was divided into three duty stations. A tour in Nam attached to a CB unit, complete with my very own M16, a year in Virginia with an outfit called Inshore Undersea Warfare Group Two, and finally life aboard a ship. In this case, the USS Fulton, a submarine tender that remained tied up to the pier most of the time, heading for open seas only to dump nuclear waste and to cause me extreme seasickness.
In each case, I was out of my element, living with guys from Alaska, the deep south, Guam, Harlem – Blacks, Filipinos, Hillbillies, as well as cosmopolitans. Because of and despite regulations and traditions, we figured it out, got along, developed friendships, or at least comfortable relationships. Learned from one another. You could say we bonded. We saved one another, had each other’s backs, shared our frustrations and united to gripe and laugh at our predicaments.
It turned out to be formative, at least for me. It was a difficult period but more rewarding than much of my life. I received my honorable discharge in 1970, just in time to get caught up in a rapidly changing world. Been a veteran ever since.
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Charles Kraus received a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam. His memoir, “You’ll Never Work Again In Teaneck, NJ” includes several chapters about his military career.
