Made the wise decision to go into radio when I was 20

I was shootin’ the breeze with a guy not too long ago.

He was about my age so I asked him a question about something long ago.

“So you were in the military? Vietnam?” I asked.

“No, I had no interest in being in the military. When I was 18 I’d had enough of somebody telling me what to do all the time,” he said.

I could totally relate. I thought maybe that’s why I never joined up either, I just didn’t have those words.

I mean I’d looked into it, took tests, talked to recruiters, I’d even had a U. S. Marine recruiter walk right up, just to me after a high school assembly and ask me to come see him to join the U.S. Marines.

“Come see me when you’re about to graduate,” he said as he handed me his recruiter’s card.

Me? U.S. Marine material?

“Me? U.S. Marine material? I’d get my rear end kicked all over basic training. Besides, things look tough from what they’re showing on the Walter Cronkite news with Vietnam,” I said.

“We’re not going to be there much longer,” he said.

How did he know?

“We don’t send our tall guys into combat. We post tall men like you outside our embassies so people in third-world countries think we’re giants,” he said.

I didn’t go see the Marine recruiter.

But a couple of years later I did go see a Navy recruiter.

I had grabbed a couple of egg rolls and a soda from a Chinese eatery.

I was sitting on a bench in the sun enjoying my repast when it occurred to me I could be eating egg rolls in Taiwan if I were in the Navy.

I wasn’t doing so hot in college anyway so the next day I marched over to the Navy recruiter.

We sat and talked.

“Have you smoked marijuana?” the guy asked.

I paused as I thought.

“From now on don’t EVER pause when someone asks you that question, the answer is NO SIR, and be quick about it,” the guy barked at me.

He sent me off to be tested.

I got a real high score.

“We would put you on one of our nuclear submarines,” the fellow said after reviewing my results.

I laughed out loud.

“Me? Hanging around atomic bombs?” I said.

That was as far as I went with the Navy.

Then things got so bad grade-wise in college I just went on home.

It was my big brother who told me I needed to promptly sign up for the U.S. Army.

He’d been in.

“Go in. Don’t waste your money on rent, live in the barracks. They provide all your clothes. Save your money. Do the enlistment. Get out and you have a nest egg to go do what you want,” he said.

It was only later in life I wondered why my dad never encouraged me to join the Army.

After all, he’d been in World War II. He made rank. I can’t remember exactly what, but he did.

But he never said one word about me joining up.

Big brother had it all planned out for me.

So I went in for a physical at the military physical place.

Somewhere in there I changed my mind; I was going to go into radio and be the greatest DJ ever.

Such was the wise decision made by a 20-year-old.

The stuff of life.

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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