It was the year the world got small.
I entered 1968 anxious to put the life of a commuter college student behind me and to experience the exploding world order. (Asked recently to name my most memorable college experience, I couldn't come up with one. A colleague commented later, "You should have said, 'Finding a parking space.' ")
As I rounded the turn toward graduation, there was the Tet Offensive and mounting pressure on the freedom-hungry Czechs and the murder of Dr. King. One hundred and twenty cities erupted. Bobby was lost, too.
In my little world, there was the compelling need to make a personal choice. There was the draft, but there also were socially acceptable workarounds for members of the privileged class.
I picked the Army.
Writer Kurlansky gave a nod in his so-so book, "1968," to graffiti spotted in the stairwell of a Paris school. It read, "To be free in 1968 is to take part."
Maybe that's the best to be said for the year. I took part.
I graduated college and signed my soft ass over to the U.S. Army at the armed forces recruiting station on Broad Street because it was the Army guy who was closest to the front door. I boarded a bus to Fort Dix.
My decision to volunteer was not a heroic one and it certainly wasn't an ideological one.
Today, I'd say this act was driven by one part fairness, since so many others could not escape the military; another part arrogance - I had read all the works of Bernard Fall, the great chronicler of the French Indochinese War, after all; and eight parts curiosity. There is a reason why a buckin' bronc rider is tattooed on my right shoulder.
