When the Army calls, heroes answer

In December 1998, seeking college tuition assistance, I voluntarily enlisted in the Iowa Army National Guard. I did not have enough courage to do this, but growing up in the 1980s and ’90s, I had read about men who’d gone to jail for dodging military service. I held the erroneous assumption that once I signed the enlistment papers, I would have to complete service or go to jail. This fear of prison helped me face the comparatively lesser terror of Army basic training.Lately I’ve been thinking about those who were drafted, forced by the government into the military and sent to war. I was scared, as I enlisted during the pre-9/11 Clinton era. What must it have been like for those who came of age during the draft? Recently I talked to a man from my old hometown, the father of a high school friend, about that.Tom Zeien graduated from high school in La Porte City, Iowa, in 1965. He was eager to join his father in the family’s sand and gravel business. The U.S. Army had other plans. U.S. Marines flinch as shell booms from the tube of their mortar on a sweeping operation south of Da Nang, South Vietnam on Dec. 1, 1966, in an area believed to be under strong Vietcong influence. While the mortar is capable of being hand-held, it is normally placed on a heavy base plate to stand on its own. (Dang Van Phuoc/AP Photo) In January of 1966, Tom’s mother came out to the family workshop. “I got a letter from the government.”Tom was working on something. “Read it.”“Your friends and neighbors have volunteered your service for the Army …”His father had received the exact same notice for World War II.By February, Tom and 30 others from the county reported to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. After basic training, he was home for a week. Then he was off to Fort Gordon in Georgia to train to be a pole lineman. There was no job choice.“They just hand you a paper with orders on it, and you had to report.” After lineman school, he went directly to Vietnam.There he was assigned to the 64th Signal Battalion at Nha Trang. He lived in a long, narrow tent with a waist-high sandbag barrier all around and bunks up on pallets. “Vietnam was red hot,” Tom told me.Sometimes in the Army, a random event produces a profound life change. In Vietnam, Tom’s unit was short of mechanics. The company commander asked the new arrivals if they had mechanic experience. Tom said he did.“You better not be lying,” said the commander.Tom was happy to be a mechanic instead of a lineman. “You’re a pretty darn good target 30 feet in the air,” he told me.For one year and one month in Vietnam, Tom Zeien fixed trucks. I asked what it was like to be forced to go to war.“I hated the idea of going at first,” Tom said. “But after I was over there and got in a routine, I didn’t think much of it.”Tom eventually returned to America, landing in San Francisco. He was in uniform, carrying his duffle bag. Immediately, some disgusting people there bad-mouthed him, calling him a baby killer.Back in the states, Zeien served about six months at Fort Rucker in Alabama. After they’d served their tours in Vietnam, the Army was pretty lax with them. They only had to show up on time for work and make sure their beds were made.After two years, SPC Zeien’s time in the Army was over. He returned to the gravel business in Iowa. He had friends who voluntarily enlisted for three years, with promises of no Vietnam service, in order to avoid the draft. Some of them didn’t go to Vietnam, but many of them did.The idea of the government forcing people into the military and to go to war is, honestly, bizarre and horrifying for me. I wanted to understand what that felt like.THE UNEXPECTED LIFE LESSONS OF THE ARMY“That’s two years you’ll never get back,” Tom said. “Now I look back, I’m glad I did it. It was a good experience.”I’m amazed that he can be so casual about being drafted. Tom Zeien and others like him are truly American heroes.Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.