July of 1969. I was 19 years old. I took money out of pay phones for the Telephone company and had my own apartment and car. I had friends and a good looking girl friend (who I had the great blessing to marry later). Life was great. Late 60’s rock was on the radio, Houston was a fun place to live, I had all the money I needed to live and buy clothes and take my girl out to eat and stuff.’
My job was even entertaining. Since I took money out of pay phones, I went into every conceivable establishment, from bars to fancy hotels to grocery stores to church buildings. In the course of this I met every conceivable kind of person.
Texas City, where my parents lived and from where I had graduated high school, was on my route. It was only about 35 miles south of Houston on the freeway. When I went down there, usually once a week, I would always stop in for a minute or two to see them.
Middle of July, 1969. I pulled up in their driveway, got out of the step van that held the coins, and walked into the kitchen. My dad had gotten home from work and was sitting in a chair at the table. Mom was doing something at the sink. Both looked at me with a weird sort of smile. Dad handed me a letter. It was from the Department of Defense, and began with the dreaded words: Greetings.
I had been drafted. Since I wasn’t going to school or any other deferment things, I was prime cannon fodder. I was scared.
That night I told Ella. We went to a party that had already been planned at which she jumped around in almost manic glee. I thought, great. She doesn’t even care that I am going into the army and will probably die.
Later that evening she cried. She was just compensating at the party.
At some point, I visited a recruiter. I don’t remember why. He told me that if I did a 2 year enlistment (the “draft-buster”) I would have an RA on the front of my serial number instead of a US and I would go in a day earlier. Then he said the magic words. It may go easier on you.
I did and I went in a day earlier and I went to Germany. I have always wondered what would have happened if I had gone in when I was supposed to.
People, in the last two or three years, have begun to thank me for being a soldier. My usual response is, “yeah, I didn’t go to Canada.” But it is different. In the past, the fact that you were a soldier didn’t really matter. With our renewed emphasis on their sacrifices with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, people are beginning to remember that becoming a soldier meant giving up time and maybe your life for your country.
If I had it to do again, I would do it again. Most guys my age who didn’t go into the army always have a hundred reasons why. None are bad, but there is the embarrassment of missing the great shared experience that every soldier knows: mess hall food.
I do wish I had done better as a soldier. I was just a little too rebellious and the drug culture almost claimed me as a victim. But I made it. And I am glad.
PFC John Cliver
RA464905150
Co C, 11th AD Signal Battalion
USAREUR
Discharged Honorably, August, 1975
National Defense Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Sharpshooter, M-14 And M-16
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