On July 16, 1969 NASA's Apollo 11 mission took off for the Moon. Four days later on July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong would famously take that first step on the Moon, saying "that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." That was fifty years ago. I personally had a lot going on around that same time and consequently I will never forget exactly where I was and what I was doing on July 20, 1969 the moment Neil Armstrong's foot hit the ground on the Moon.
But first, a little personal history to set the stage:
During my years at Baylor University (1964-1968) America was rapidly escalating it's presence in South Vietnam as part of the Cold War with China and Russia. US military personnel in Vietnam jumped from ~16,000 in 1964 to over 465,000 by the end of 1967. The year 1968, which began with the North Vietnamese surprise Tet Offensive [when most American's thought we were winning] would turn out to be the worst year of the Vietnam War. [About 17,000 American service men lost their lives in 1968 and tens of thousands more were injured.] By late 1967 the US military was badly in need of new recruits for the Army. Most had to be drafted as voluntary enlistments had plummeted. In the earlier Vietnam War build up before 1967, many men I knew had avoided the military draft with graduate school and marriage deferments. Both of those types of deferments were eliminated in 1967-68 just as I was graduating and thinking of graduate school, and getting married in May 1968.
My draft board in Ohio County, Kentucky (where I was born) graciously extended my college deferment twice (in the summer and again in the fall) when I could have and should have graduated in May 1968. I hadn't done anything illegal but I did try to run out the clock by changing my major at Baylor in the spring and thus needing more classes in my new major to graduate. I was hoping the Vietnam War would end [as President Johnson kept saying it would] but ending that War, of course, was simply wishful thinking in 1968. The draft lottery did not begin until late 1969, so I had no chance of a high draft number helping me escape military service. So by the fall of 1968 I had run out of ideas for deferring the Draft as I prepared to graduate from Baylor University. I suspect that by late 1968 my Ohio County draft board really had no choice but to draft me because it was running out of draftee candidates. Most young men in Ohio County, Kentucky by then had either been drafted already or had enlisted. So, not surprisingly, in late 1968 I was notified that my college Draft deferment would end and I would be drafted into The United States Army.
The certain knowledge that I would be drafted into the Army and end up in the Infantry [even though at first I didn't know precisely when that would happen] presented my wife and I with all kinds of difficult decisions. Where would my wife live when I was gone? What would she/we live on (military pay for a private was less than $200/month)? Should I attempt to enlist somewhere else rather than being drafted into the Army and being in the infantry (Navy, Airforce, Army Reserves, National Guard). Should I consider becoming an Officer in the Army (Officer Candidate School took longer, but 2nd Lt.'s were among the highest casualties?) How would my being drafted affect my new job, did I even have a job now?
My employer at the time was A.O.Smith Corp where I had worked full time for several years while I was studying at Baylor. [Ironically I was working at A.O.Smith's factory in Waco, Texas which was a bomb-factory. I believe we produced as much as 1/3 of all the 750 lb. bombs used in the Vietnam War.] A.O.Smith had offered me a full time job as a Financial Analyst at their headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin upon my graduation from Baylor. When I informed A.O.Smith that I had been Drafted they reassured me immediately that their job offer to me was unchanged. I was to report to Milwaukee as soon as possible after graduation and begin work. A.O.Smith would then allow me to perform my Military Service, no matter how long it was, and whenever my service was complete they would "welcome me home" to the same job they had offered me before. A.O.Smith has a very long history of supporting America and it's Military and it turned out to be the finest company I ever had the pleasure of working for. I was extremely grateful to A.O.Smith for the burden they lifted from my shoulders at the time.
My wife Joy and I moved from (Baylor) Waco, Texas to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in January 1969 and I began work at A.O.Smith. We were babes in the woods, it was -10 degrees F. in Milwaukee when we arrived, each with nothing more than flimsy raincoats to keep us warm. But we soon learned to adapt to the cold, found a nice apartment to live in and came to love the clean, safe, orderly and friendly Wisconsin culture. Another burden was quickly lifted when Joy found a job as an elementary school teacher that would help tide us over financially while I was in the service. And finally, as it would turn out, the most momentous thing we did was to join a small Baptist Church near our neighborhood.
I took and passed the military induction physical in April 1969 and continued working at A.O.Smith. About a month later I received my orders to prepare myself to report for active duty on July 20, 1969. I was to go to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, the U.S. Army training installation located in the Ozark mountains about 150 miles southwest of St. Louis. From the time I had arrived in Milwaukee in January that year, I had applied to join every Army, Navy, AirForce and Coast Guard Reserve unit and all the State National Guard units within 200 miles of Milwaukee, but to no avail. They all had huge waiting lists. Then a miracle happened or some would say I was lucky. Joy and I always felt that it was by the grace of God we somehow discovered there was an older man who was a member of our Church and who was also a Chaplin in the Wisconsin Army National Guard. We approached him about my lack of success in joining the Guard and he promised to "see what he could do" for me. I later learned that he had a legitimate opening for an assistant in his National Guard unit. That opening would normally have gone to somebody on the Guard waiting list. But the Chaplin lobbied ferocusily for two months to instead have me re-assigned to the National Guard so that I could fill that position. The Chaplin finally succeeded, and with just two weeks left before I was to report (and almost certainly then be sent to Vietnam) I officially became a member of the Wisconsin Army National Guard (and not a draftee). I was to continue on to Ft. Leonard Wood as scheduled for six weeks of Army basic training, and then to Ft. Gordon (in Brooklyn, New York) for AIT as a Chaplin's Assistant at the Chaplin school there.
To get to Ft. Leonard Wood, I had to first get to the central bus station in downtown Chicago where I was to meet up with a group of other Army recruits all going to Leonard Wood. We had to be there ready to go at about 10:00am on Sunday morning, July 20, 1969. I don't remember exactly, but to be safe, I believe I left Milwaukee about 6:00am and got to Chicago about 8:00am. We took a commercial bus from Chicago to St. Louis (which made several stops) and then transferred to a Military bus that took us on to Ft. Leonard Wood. After traveling for around 12 hours, we arrived at Ft. Leonard Wood at about 9:30pm CST. Normally, new recruits like us would have been greeted by a bunch of screaming Drill Sergeants who would have put us through the ringer well into the night before marching us off to our barracks to begin boot camp. But this night was special for both us and those Drill Sergeants. Instead of harassment, mainly because they wanted to see it themselves, those Drill Sergeants herded hundred's of us into the place that would be our mess hall thereafter, and allowed us to crowd around these tiny black & white TV's and watch Neil Armstrong take the first step by a human being on another planet. I was filled with all kinds of emotions that night. I was very tired, I already missed my new wife, I was scared of what might befall me in boot camp, I felt guilty seeing all those around me who were surely destined for Vietnam and then at the same time I was thrilled to have a chance to see this extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime event on the Moon! July 20, 1969 was without doubt the most moving experience of my entire life.
But first, a little personal history to set the stage:
During my years at Baylor University (1964-1968) America was rapidly escalating it's presence in South Vietnam as part of the Cold War with China and Russia. US military personnel in Vietnam jumped from ~16,000 in 1964 to over 465,000 by the end of 1967. The year 1968, which began with the North Vietnamese surprise Tet Offensive [when most American's thought we were winning] would turn out to be the worst year of the Vietnam War. [About 17,000 American service men lost their lives in 1968 and tens of thousands more were injured.] By late 1967 the US military was badly in need of new recruits for the Army. Most had to be drafted as voluntary enlistments had plummeted. In the earlier Vietnam War build up before 1967, many men I knew had avoided the military draft with graduate school and marriage deferments. Both of those types of deferments were eliminated in 1967-68 just as I was graduating and thinking of graduate school, and getting married in May 1968.
My draft board in Ohio County, Kentucky (where I was born) graciously extended my college deferment twice (in the summer and again in the fall) when I could have and should have graduated in May 1968. I hadn't done anything illegal but I did try to run out the clock by changing my major at Baylor in the spring and thus needing more classes in my new major to graduate. I was hoping the Vietnam War would end [as President Johnson kept saying it would] but ending that War, of course, was simply wishful thinking in 1968. The draft lottery did not begin until late 1969, so I had no chance of a high draft number helping me escape military service. So by the fall of 1968 I had run out of ideas for deferring the Draft as I prepared to graduate from Baylor University. I suspect that by late 1968 my Ohio County draft board really had no choice but to draft me because it was running out of draftee candidates. Most young men in Ohio County, Kentucky by then had either been drafted already or had enlisted. So, not surprisingly, in late 1968 I was notified that my college Draft deferment would end and I would be drafted into The United States Army.
The certain knowledge that I would be drafted into the Army and end up in the Infantry [even though at first I didn't know precisely when that would happen] presented my wife and I with all kinds of difficult decisions. Where would my wife live when I was gone? What would she/we live on (military pay for a private was less than $200/month)? Should I attempt to enlist somewhere else rather than being drafted into the Army and being in the infantry (Navy, Airforce, Army Reserves, National Guard). Should I consider becoming an Officer in the Army (Officer Candidate School took longer, but 2nd Lt.'s were among the highest casualties?) How would my being drafted affect my new job, did I even have a job now?
My employer at the time was A.O.Smith Corp where I had worked full time for several years while I was studying at Baylor. [Ironically I was working at A.O.Smith's factory in Waco, Texas which was a bomb-factory. I believe we produced as much as 1/3 of all the 750 lb. bombs used in the Vietnam War.] A.O.Smith had offered me a full time job as a Financial Analyst at their headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin upon my graduation from Baylor. When I informed A.O.Smith that I had been Drafted they reassured me immediately that their job offer to me was unchanged. I was to report to Milwaukee as soon as possible after graduation and begin work. A.O.Smith would then allow me to perform my Military Service, no matter how long it was, and whenever my service was complete they would "welcome me home" to the same job they had offered me before. A.O.Smith has a very long history of supporting America and it's Military and it turned out to be the finest company I ever had the pleasure of working for. I was extremely grateful to A.O.Smith for the burden they lifted from my shoulders at the time.
My wife Joy and I moved from (Baylor) Waco, Texas to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in January 1969 and I began work at A.O.Smith. We were babes in the woods, it was -10 degrees F. in Milwaukee when we arrived, each with nothing more than flimsy raincoats to keep us warm. But we soon learned to adapt to the cold, found a nice apartment to live in and came to love the clean, safe, orderly and friendly Wisconsin culture. Another burden was quickly lifted when Joy found a job as an elementary school teacher that would help tide us over financially while I was in the service. And finally, as it would turn out, the most momentous thing we did was to join a small Baptist Church near our neighborhood.
I took and passed the military induction physical in April 1969 and continued working at A.O.Smith. About a month later I received my orders to prepare myself to report for active duty on July 20, 1969. I was to go to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, the U.S. Army training installation located in the Ozark mountains about 150 miles southwest of St. Louis. From the time I had arrived in Milwaukee in January that year, I had applied to join every Army, Navy, AirForce and Coast Guard Reserve unit and all the State National Guard units within 200 miles of Milwaukee, but to no avail. They all had huge waiting lists. Then a miracle happened or some would say I was lucky. Joy and I always felt that it was by the grace of God we somehow discovered there was an older man who was a member of our Church and who was also a Chaplin in the Wisconsin Army National Guard. We approached him about my lack of success in joining the Guard and he promised to "see what he could do" for me. I later learned that he had a legitimate opening for an assistant in his National Guard unit. That opening would normally have gone to somebody on the Guard waiting list. But the Chaplin lobbied ferocusily for two months to instead have me re-assigned to the National Guard so that I could fill that position. The Chaplin finally succeeded, and with just two weeks left before I was to report (and almost certainly then be sent to Vietnam) I officially became a member of the Wisconsin Army National Guard (and not a draftee). I was to continue on to Ft. Leonard Wood as scheduled for six weeks of Army basic training, and then to Ft. Gordon (in Brooklyn, New York) for AIT as a Chaplin's Assistant at the Chaplin school there.
To get to Ft. Leonard Wood, I had to first get to the central bus station in downtown Chicago where I was to meet up with a group of other Army recruits all going to Leonard Wood. We had to be there ready to go at about 10:00am on Sunday morning, July 20, 1969. I don't remember exactly, but to be safe, I believe I left Milwaukee about 6:00am and got to Chicago about 8:00am. We took a commercial bus from Chicago to St. Louis (which made several stops) and then transferred to a Military bus that took us on to Ft. Leonard Wood. After traveling for around 12 hours, we arrived at Ft. Leonard Wood at about 9:30pm CST. Normally, new recruits like us would have been greeted by a bunch of screaming Drill Sergeants who would have put us through the ringer well into the night before marching us off to our barracks to begin boot camp. But this night was special for both us and those Drill Sergeants. Instead of harassment, mainly because they wanted to see it themselves, those Drill Sergeants herded hundred's of us into the place that would be our mess hall thereafter, and allowed us to crowd around these tiny black & white TV's and watch Neil Armstrong take the first step by a human being on another planet. I was filled with all kinds of emotions that night. I was very tired, I already missed my new wife, I was scared of what might befall me in boot camp, I felt guilty seeing all those around me who were surely destined for Vietnam and then at the same time I was thrilled to have a chance to see this extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime event on the Moon! July 20, 1969 was without doubt the most moving experience of my entire life.
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