I graduated HS in June of 1967 and by July was in Berkeley. I was expecting things to be really cool and to meet people that really thought about things.
What I actually found were a bunch of self-absorbed narcissists that all followed the same path, thought the same thoughts and believed the same things. There was no questioning, unless it meant getting some dope, some pussy or some money.
In October 1967 I went to a big antiwar demonstration at the Induction Center in Oakland.
The next day I went down and enlisted in the U.S. Army.
Bad choice? Yes and no. I closed some doors and opened others. I retired from the Army in 1989. They got what they wanted from me and I got what I wanted from them. There’s a lot of talk these days about “diversity” but I experienced more “diversity” in any given day in the Army than I would have on any college campus in the U.S. I also got to live in exotic land and meet the people. But contrary to the T-shirt, I didn’t kill them. I made a lot of friends, learned several languages, found that people are not all the same and married one of them. That was 36 years ago and we’re still married.
Some bad times, some good times. That’s about the best you can hope for.
