We were not warrior class family,

Long one; don't bother
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We were not warrior class family, Dad's side.

Oh, Gramps served in WW1, but as a son of a middling-wealthy industrialist, I'm not sure how close to the fire he got.

Dad spent WW2 training pilots in Kansas. (The father-in-law I never got to meet also only served at home, teaching celestial navigation - but he insisted on enlisting even with only having one eye!)

But we boomers....

Eldest brother - I think his $10 weed 'sale' entrapment conviction made him undraftable.

Middle brother tried to get a CO, but was laughed off by the WW1 Vets on the draft board, so he got whatever you get to be deferred for allergies. (We really had them bad as kids. Doctor treated & all. Rich doctor. )

It was decades after the fact that I came to understand my Mom - God love her - wasn't really as concerned about my "finishing my education," when she pleaded with me not to drop out of college, as much as she feared my being drafted. Her father was never quite right after catching a whiff of mustard gas in WW1, and she remembered her brother Ed & others fighting & dying (Ed lived) in action in WW2. She saw Nam presented as meatgrinder on the evening news. Can't blame her too much for wanting to protect her babies. :/

Although my step-father had been a medic in the field in WW2, he was non-influential on my life, and Dad was dead. I didn't have any elder to advise me. And certainly there was no personal inspiration to join up. I ultimately just threw myself in with my citizen brothers, and Murphy's Law looked the other direction for me, just for the draft.

Mrs's eldest bro served in the Navy as if I told you what I did I'd have to kill you stuff, but mostly stationed on Guam, not Nam. Now, see, if I'd known that, even as a religious pacifist and mortal coward, but patriotic and dutiful, I might have been able to serve in some capacity other than unarmed frontline chaplain (I was pacific, not suicidal), I might have been encouraged to join.

Well, hate to say it, considering the sacrifices made for American security through the past two centuries, but just sitting here growing old in the middle of the nation, it's entirely possible I may yet be compelled to take up arms in service to the Constitution. Hope not; ready to (sort of).

Deepest thanks for the service, sacrifice, and inspiration of all who served and serve.