My notice of classification in the Selective Service System as 1-A (eligible for military service) was dated June 12, 1968. But the die had pretty been much cast when word came out in late 1967 that the student deferments by which we had been shielded from the draft in college would no longer apply to those in graduate school (except for certain fields).
Quite a few classmates at Boston College had joined me in taking the examination for Naval Officer Candidate School soon thereafter. I was quite surprised to be among the few selected for OCS. I later learned the acceptance rate was seven percent. I had rarely qualified in such circumstances and still have no idea what had set me apart in this case.
At one point in the process, a couple of Lieutenants interviewed me and asked what would I want to do in the Navy. I told them I was interested in journalism and would want to do that. I wish I had a picture, besides in my memory, of their faces. “Unh. You can be either a line officer or a supply officer. Maybe a line officer at some point could go into Public Affairs.” Then I want to be a line officer, I said.
Later they asked why I wanted to be in the Navy as opposed to another service. I mentioned I didn’t really consider the Air Force, because my eyesight would not allow me to be a pilot. “How bad is your eyesight?” (I was wearing contact lenses.) “20/400.” “Well, you can’t be a line officer, then, with that eyesight. I’ll put you down for Supply.” Okay.
Sometime during that summer, one of my parents answered the phone and said someone from the Navy wanted to talk to me. I remember it was a Chief from BUPERS. He informed me that, while I had been accepted into the Navy as a Supply Officer, my designator was being changed. I would henceforth be a Special Duty Officer, Intelligence (1635). As usual, it was not a request for me to consider. It was an order.
Rushing forward from the back of my mind, during and after that conversation, was memory of North Korea a few months earlier (January 1968) seizing the USS Pueblo, a “research ship” assigned to Naval Intelligence and operating as a “spy” ship. Suddenly, I realized, I might be on the replacement crew for the Pueblo. (Didn’t happen, obviously, but I certainly wasn’t sure what this move to Intel would mean.)
I think the reason for the switch to Intel was that someone saw I had studied Russian in college. Only for two years, though, and I couldn’t speak squat.
Knowing I was to report to OCS in September, I was still somewhat more relaxed than many of my classmates at graduation in June. I knew I was not going to be drafted and I was doing something I had chosen (okay, under some duress) to do.
I spent the first part of the summer at the Springfield (Mass.) Daily News, where I had worked each summer after freshman year. Probably in early August, I finished that and went on a bit of a farewell tour. I spent a few days with a long-time friend, his wife, and first daughter, in Akron, Ohio. Getting on the Ohio Turnpike on my way to Chicago, Born to Be Wild came on my AM radio. Well. My 1965 Sunbeam Tiger was supposed to go as fast as 120 mph, but I had never pushed it. Steppenwolf — “Get your motor runnin.’ Head out on the highway.” — told me to push it. I did.
I think I reached triple figures. Then, with the top down, the wind picked up a thin nylon jacket in the space behind the seats and wrapped it around my head. I couldn’t see. No time to panic. Just take my foot off the gas and get that thing off me. Then tremble a bit. I probably kept close to the speed limit after that.
In Chicago, I visited a young woman I had met earlier in Boston, when she was visiting her brother who had mutual friends with me. Smitten. What I remember particularly though is she told me her younger sister, maybe 18, thought I looked like Dustin Hoffman. The Graduate had come out several months earlier. I think it was because of my haircut. She should have seen me after my OCS one.
Chicago to Akron to Springfield and, a few days later, to Newport. Then this story began.