THE BUDDY SYSTEM

I don't remember anyone asking me. I wasn't tempted. But a lot of my buddies were.

The place: Sailor's Cafe on the campus of MTV High and MTV Community College.

The time: Viet Nam War year(s)

The people: college students /

facing the draft.

Me: a 17 year-old/ 18 year old college student

One of my friends had left the day before for his first day of college at SIU, 60 miles away. I went to a few classes and headed to Sailor's for lunch. It would make my third year there eating hamburgers or tenderloins and fries and cokes. Later in the year I would add coffee and cigarettes because there were still high school students frequenting the place and I didn't want to be taken for one of them.

But my SIU friend was there at lunch. He had gone to SIU, seen what a hassle registration was, checked out of his dorm and joined the Air Force. I still don't know how he did all that in one morning and still made it back to MTV for lunch. He must have liked the AF because he was a career man.

Slowly, I would see the college bail outs. They'd go in on the Buddy Plan which guaranteed they would go through Basic Training together. One group of 5 decided to join the Navy on that plan. The irony. The owner of Sailor's son became a sailor.

Those times were something else. You never knew who would flinch, who would be fed up, who would be the next to join. One of my friends joined because he could be inducted on the field at Busch Stadium. A pitcher who had planned to play for the Cardinals did the next best thing, I guess; he was in the Cardinal Command.

I'm pretty sure I could have resisted had a Buddy wanted me to go in with him. It just wasn't that appealing to me. And of all the friends and acquaintances that I had who joined the service or who was drafted, I never knew of one who did so because he believed in that war. Not one.