OCR Text |
Show Bau man Says s Vietnam Blues Editor's Note: Since this column was written, Joe Bauman has been re- fused induction into the army because of his physical condition. Instead J he has left for Maryland to assist the Project Head Start there. He hopes f to return to the University next fall after replenishing his bankroll. Though this column is no longer accurate, we have chosen to run it to conclude J.'s 1967-68 service on the Chronicle staff. The University as well as the Chronicle will miss Bauman's literary contributions. By J. BAUMAN This will be my last column for a while. It may be my last period. I'm joining the Army. Perhaps I'll be able to write feature articles from Saigon. This war is a bummer. Armies clanking, banging, saluteing, lock-step lock-step grotesqueries are also uncomfortable to be around. I need not elaborate; my readers must by now be aware of my feelings about ideology. But on top of crushing personal problems, I am in school and it's a dud. I would probably enjoy the University were it not for constant, inescapable in-escapable pressures and frustrations forced upon me by the war. I find it impossible to function well when I don't know when the axe will fall; I cannot plan my future when I don't even know I'll be alive next year; I could never assume the responsibility of a wife when I can't quit school to support her or even know I won't leave her a widow in a few months. There are certain unsavory alternatives to the service : one can scurry off to Canada, but I can't see myself running away I want to write about this simmering nation, live in oil towns and fishing villages and cities. One can feign homosexuality, but I'm not a homosexual and would never pretend to be. One can try for consientious objector status, but there are wars I would willingly fight; besides, I don't have the required re-quired religious background. One can injure oneself or fake a disability so as to flunk the physical, but this is dishonest and doubly repugnant because I can't entertain the idea of mutilating my own body. And one can God forbid go to jail. So I am left with only one alternative in fact, when there is only one course of action available, it isn't even an alternative and that course of action is military service. There are minor areas of choice envolved in that course: One can go in now or when one graduates, thus sweatting it out for an additional year or so while the ubiquitous service lurks and gurgles and rubs its grubby palms together; and one can either enlist or be drafted. Personally, I'm tired of waiting. It wasn't difficult t odecide to go in right now. The other minor choice enlistment or the draft is a bit more complicated. Enlistment has some advantages over the draft, and some drawbacks too. The one fat, smirking disadvantage is that enlistment is a three-year deal, and the draft is only a two-yearer. An advantage of enlistment is that you are never put into the active reserves once you serve your hitch; a draftee will spend summers and weekends in meetings and camps long after his discharge. Further, an enlisted man has more of a fighting chance to get the kind of training he wants than has a draftee. So Wednesday I went to the recuiting center and enlisted. It will be a relief to get money, school, personal and draft pressures off my back, but an even greater one to get the enevitable stint out of the way and done with. I will try to write as frequently as I can, and will send along my address as soon as I have one. I'll need letters. |