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Five Sept. 11 Suspects to Face Trial in New York

The Obama administration has announced it will try 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9-11 Gitmo detainees in a civilian federal court in New York, allowing them the protections of the U.S. Constitution even though they are not U.S. citizens.

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Four Radical Chinese Muslims Transferred to Bermuda

Four Chinese Uighers (radical Chinese Muslims) were recently transferred to Bermuda. Do you think it's a good idea to release Gitmo detainees to idyllic vacation retreats?

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May 23, 2008

Draft ‘Misfits’ Morphed into Heroes

Colonel Kenneth Allard (US Army, ret.)

How does a nation suffering a nasty case of early-onset Alzheimer's go about celebrating Memorial Day? Maybe by remembering not only those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in combat but also by marking something that seems extraordinary only in retrospect: the inevitable graying of the nation's last draftees. We didn't recognize it at the time but simply by stepping forward my generation may have been the last to answer a call to the colors that had been part of the nation's history for almost 200 years.

Particularly during the Vietnam War, the allegedly Selective Service System functioned like a government conspiracy intent on singling out the greatest possible collection of misfits, throwbacks and social rejects. With ruthless efficiency, these unwashed were herded into grim "processing centers" for examination and, usually, induction.

My student deferment now a fond memory, in April 1969 I reluctantly took my place with a hundred other future draftees at an armed forces center outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Supervised by an unfrocked sergeant major, we shuffled here and there until the front door burst open to admit a late arrival. He wore classic Hells Angels gear: filthy jeans, obscene t-shirt, motorcycle boots, leather jacket and chains draped everywhere. But every eye in the room was drawn to the chrome Nazi helmet topping off his pre-induction outfit. Even the sergeant major was speechless. There was dead silence until the black kid sitting next to me spoke up: "Hey man, they got LOTSA helmets. You don't need to bring your own." The ensuing roar of laughter lasted for five minutes. When it ended, we had experienced our first bonding, not just as draftees but as future soldiers.

How well did the misfits do? It has slowly dawned on both Hollywood and some historians that the draftees once dismissed as rejects were actually heroes and patriots. If you saw Mel Gibson, playing Colonel Hal Moore in "We Were Soldiers Once and Young," then you saw the true story of the American soldier in a desperate fight. As Moore said in both the book and the movie, "The only difference between us and Custer is that Custer didn't have close air support."

Friends like Barry McCaffrey and Wes Clark were badly wounded but won the Army's highest decorations for gallantry. Jack Jacobs survived helicopter crashes and overrun fire bases only because God really does have a sense of humor and had apparently decided that the field of investment banking needed enrichment by a true comedian like Jack. Especially one wearing the Medal of Honor.

Looking nothing like a Vietnamese, I was assigned to Germany with which, strictly speaking, we were not at war just then. But arrayed against the armored juggernaut of the Group of Soviet Forces (Germany) during an era of constant confrontation, the effects of Vietnam reached deep into the heart of Europe. Years later, Pulitzer Prize winning historian Rick Atkinson described our generation this way: "They stayed the course after Vietnam when the Army was an institution in anguish...They remained true to the profession of arms and set out to make things right."

A military career can take you to strange places. Barry and Wes ended up with four stars but after 9/11 joined Jack and me as Warheads, television analysts explaining a new kind of war to a public now missing a full generation of military experience. The food, pay and surroundings were better, but it felt a little like being drafted for the second time.

So how did we do? Were we seduced by the cameras and access to the powerful or did we remain true to the profession of arms?

My marriage to a lovely Texan now includes the immeasurable gift of two grandchildren who may ask such questions this Memorial Day. So I will begin by telling them about a nation which still proudly proclaims its trust in God but doesn't always recognize that its continued existence is reflected in our motto: One Out of Many. And how we once cared enough about our history and our future to call the nation's youth to their service.

Col. (Ret) Ken Allard is an executive-in-residence at UTSA, the author of Warheads, and a columnist with the San Antonio Express-News. E-mail comments: Warheads6@aol.com.

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