[speaker002:] well you go first you called
[speaker001:] okay uh let's see um well I'm about forty years old so I was um right at draft age back back when uh when that was all going on
[speaker002:] right right
[speaker001:] and uh so that pretty it very much affected me as you know as far as being very impressionable right at that time um I I didn't think I was kind of kind of a caught up in the in the hippie movement back then and I didn't think it was uh worthwhile or or right then and I'm not any I'm not like you know I'm not a not that way anymore but I still don't think it was uh
[speaker002:] yes
[speaker001:] uh I still have a lot of questions about why we were there and and uh the way it was conducted and all kinds of things
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] yeah how about yourself
[speaker002:] well I'm I'm I'll be forty two in February in fact my husband was in the first lottery you know he he was in the first
[speaker001:] so you
[speaker002:] first lottery and uh he got a high draft number thank goodness so he didn't have to go but I never was for it either I um
[speaker001:] uh-huh um-hum
[speaker002:] I don't know I just felt it was a real political thing that I don't really think ever got us anywhere you know I don't I don't feel that we
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] that we accomplished much I think maybe I I don't know I I want to say well maybe if we'd gone into really win it but then I I I'm much more of dove than that so I don't know that I would have even liked that I just felt that it it drug on so long and
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] at such tremendous cost um and I think it was hard for people to keep up good morale in a situation like that I mean I I can't imagine what it was like for the men fighting over there I think that must have been a really hard thing to um
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you know to to keep their morale up uh when they knew that we weren't really trying to win and and all of that so I never was really for it I mean uh
[speaker001:] yeah yeah um-hum well I was in the uh last lottery
[speaker002:] oh you were
[speaker001:] yep and I was I came out number two hundred and fifty one
[speaker002:] oh
[speaker001:] and I had been and they and uh they only took up two hundred that year
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I had been uh in in ROTC too uh so I would at least have a choice about what I was going to do
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and when I came up two hundred and fifty one I went that's it I dropped out of ROTC and and uh
[speaker002:] yeah yeah
[speaker001:] uh yeah I I don't uh I guess uh I I kind of do the same thing I kind of think well you know I mean if if at least if we had weren't going all out to win it maybe it would have been worth something but then again I I uh probably too much of a dub my self to really
[speaker002:] well right I I don't necessarily like that philosophy but I think I would have liked that better than what we did
[speaker001:] yeah what we did yeah because all we had is uh what ten thirteen years and fifty six thousand people and and and we uh I don't know that we did we accomplish anything at all
[speaker002:] exactly I I I don't think so I mean uh
[speaker001:] I mean the communists got it anyway
[speaker002:] and and it's still such a mess in that part of the country today you know it's not like you know I think if things had been resolved and that was in a better situation but I don't think that's true
[speaker001:] and uh yeah yeah
[speaker002:] so uh you know I'm not sure that we really accomplished much of anything
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so I don't know and and I still think we're paying for that I think that there are you know a lot of the men just suffered so terribly in that situation um
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so I I don't know I I'm glad I never I didn't have anybody well I had one person close to me that went but that's all I didn't know a lot of people that went did you did you
[speaker001:] yeah I didn't know anyone that that I can recall that went that which is uh now I've met some I've met some after the fact you know people that I worked with and stuff that had been several actually that I worked with that had been but I didn't know I no one that I grew up with
[speaker002:] well I had one person and he was in the infantry and he was little and what he did was he went into the tunnels
[speaker001:] uh no you're kidding
[speaker002:] no and he came back he he lived through it which is just amazing and he would not talk um talk about it much at all
[speaker001:] huh yeah
[speaker002:] he he just would not discuss it um he did tell us one time about seeing someone a a a kid about his age you know he was probably twenty I think and he came up upon a a Vietnamese and they both had their guns on each other and they just looked at each other and put their guns down and walked away
[speaker001:] hm very sensible
[speaker002:] I I thought so too and uh
[speaker001:] yeah what what part of the country were you in when all that was going on
[speaker002:] I'm from Phoenix Arizona
[speaker001:] okay
[speaker002:] so I was in Phoenix where were you
[speaker001:] I was in uh I'm from New York but I was in uh uh Fort Worth
[speaker002:] oh you came out here to go to school
[speaker001:] yeah so I was kind of in and I was you know there were there were about twenty hippies on the whole campus I went to TCU and there were there were about twenty hippies on the whole campus and we we were
[speaker002:] yeah yeah
[speaker001:] we were very much minority so it was kind of it wasn't like being up in uh Kent State with uh with uh ten thousand protestors that were that were
[speaker002:] oh well I was in Arizona State and I can remember um coming out I had gone into a restaurant to eat and coming out and there were about oh I don't know how many thousands of students coming down the the street they had completely cordoned off the street and you know there was lots of protesting going on there at the time so I
[speaker001:] um-hum