Two Lives Changed In One Moment

It was a normal day, just after New Year’s Day, 1966.  I was driving home from work, planning to cook dinner like I normally did.  Tuna casserole was one of our favorites (it’s hard even for me to mess up tuna casserole.)  But as soon as I walked into our apartment, I knew that something was dreadfully wrong.  There was Bill, sitting on the couch, staring at a piece of paper in his lap.  He didn’t move – didn’t even acknowledge that I was there.  He just sat there, staring.  I came over to the couch and sat next to him, straining to read the letter.

It was a letter from “Uncle Sam”.  I guess we knew it could happen – it was happening everywhere in the country, even to some of our friends.  But when it actually happened to us, it seemed so surreal.  Life came to a screeching halt.  Bill was to report to the Los Angeles Armed Forces Induction Center on January 18 at 6:00 am.  We had less than two weeks to prepare.

After we were able to speak, we had to make plans – immediately!  The first thing we had to do was to break the news to our parents.  By doing that, I think it helped us process our new reality and enable us to spring into action.  We decided that I would move back with my parents and work until Bill’s two-year commitment was completed.  That way we could save up enough money to buy a house.  (Thankfully, Mom and Dad were fine with that.)  We had to notify our apartment manager.  Bill had to turn in his notice to Lockheed.  We had to move what little furniture we had and fit it into my old bedroom.  The rest we had to store at Bill’s parents’ house.

After all that was done, we took a short good-bye trip up the coast to San Francisco.  It was a bittersweet few days.  We didn’t know what our future would hold and were, quite frankly, afraid.  Would our brief 5 month marriage come to a tragic end in Vietnam or would we be faced with lifelong, debilitating injuries?  We were sure that God loved us and cared for us, but the unknown was still frightening.dismal

San Francisco was beautiful.  We took a cable car to Chinatown, walked around Fisherman’s Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park – it was idyllic, except for the ominous cloud hanging over our hearts.  On the way home, we drove through the San Joaquin Valley which was socked in with a gloomy January fog, indicative of our unknown.  Our future, once so bright, was now obscured by the fog of uncertainty and fear.

The dreaded day of January 18 came all too quickly.  We rose early that morning, went out to breakfast with my parents, then made the long drive to the Induction Center.  We slowly got out of the car, walked up he steps to the foreboding door and clung to each other in a tearful good-bye – and I watched him walk toward his new role:  a soldier in the United States Army.

…I drove away … and life continued…