A belated thank you to all the veterans.

My dad was one of the rare occurrences as someone who was drafted out of college for the Vietnam War. He tested high enough for officer's training, but he thought it would require too long of service. He also played a mean trumpet, so they also said he could have been in the military band. But again, that was a 5-year service. So he instead decided he would go as a combat soldier as it was only for 2 years, and he fought on the front lines for over a year. During his time received three Purple Hearts at different times from wounds sustained from mortar, a grenade and eventually a bullet that was fired through another soldier's head into his torso. Still has fragments of it inside him to this date.

He's definitely lucky to be alive, and I am lucky to be here today. For that and many other reasons, I am always grateful to our current and former members of the military.

I have a similar story because I was drafted out of graduate school (Kent State). I also could have gone into officer training but the only two MOS available were infantry and artillery(forward observer) and didn't want the extra year of service. I became an 11C (mortar) but never fired a mortar in nam. I was a regular grunt 11B. I could have gone to sniper training in a school in nam but it would have once again required an additional year of service. I received one purple heart for an eye injury as a result of a rocket attack and two Bronze Stars, one for valor.

The Hawk- Were you at Kent State at the time the National Guard rioted? Did you do your undergrad there? Did you play baseball there?

No. I went into grad school in 1967(fall semester) and got drafted while in grad school after the winter semester of 1968. I went into the service in Jan 1969 and got an early out to register for fall semester of 1970. I was in Nam when the Kent State riots occurred. May of 1970. I was a grad assistant for the baseball team while at Kent State but didn't pay baseball there. They had Thurmon Munson and Steve Stone when I was in grad school there and played flag football against Munson who was an awesome athlete and tough as hell. HE ran me over a couple of times while blocking for his ATO fraternity against my grad school team and loved doing it.