Some years ago my son took an undergraduate history course in the Vietnam Era. He mentioned that his father had been drafted out of law school in 1969. The other students and their twenty-seven-year-old professor were amazed; they "knew" that college students weren't drafted.

I was in the Duke Law School Class of 1970 when LBJ removed the graduate student deferment in 1968 and I was drafted along with nine more of its hundred and two guys. There were only two women in our class, a sign of the times that changed abruptly afterwards.

I'd been a history and Latin major as an undergraduate. I'd been against the war in a vague sort of way but I'd never protested or done anything else political except vote once, since the voting age was twenty-one. There was never any real question about me refusing to serve, though believe me I wasn't happy about it.

While a student I'd sold two fantasy short stories for a total of $85. I used what I knew about: historical settings and monsters based on H. P. Lovecraft's creepy-crawlies. I was proud of the sales, but writing was just a hobby.

Because I scored high on an army language aptitude test I was sent to Vietnamese language school at Fort Bliss, then for interrogation training at Fort Meade. Finally to Nam, where I was assigned to the Military Intelligence detachment of a unit I'd never heard of: the 11^th ACR, the Blackhorse Regiment.

My service wasn't in any fashion remarkable, and nothing particularly bad happened to me. I was in the field for a while with 2^nd squadron just after the capture of Snuol; then with 1^st squadron; and for the last half of the tour I was back in Di An, probably the safest place in Viet Nam, as unit armorer and mail clerk. The Inspector General was due, and apparently I was the only person in the 541^st MID who knew how to strip a .45 down to the frame. (Military Intelligence doesn't seem to get many people who shot in pistol competitions in civilian life.)