The lucky veterans

Every veteran has a story. Many young men received draft notices during the Vietnam War issued by the Selective Service that began with “GREETING: You are hereby ordered for induction in the Armed Forces of the United States.” Two young men in our family received these letters and these are their stories.   

While visiting with Amos Dean, my husband’s uncle, I was telling him that my 1966 Fastback Mustang made an appearance this year at prom and he shared his fastback story with us.

“I had a 1967 Mustang Fastback ordered with a 289 Hi Po engine and a four-speed. It cost $3,300 and then I got my draft notice, so I had to let it go. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pay for it,” he said.

Amos served in the U. S. Marine Corps, Air Wing Division, and went through boot camp in San Diego. From there, he went to school in Memphis for about one and half years, gaining six months of hydraulics and a year of electronics training. He said his pay was $80 a month and his wife received $95 a month.

“I had it real good,” he said. When he was stationed at Cherry Point, North Carolina, he had some slack time and was able to race a Hudson Hornet that had a six-cylinder 308 with twin two-barrel carbs and a C2 Kawasaki 125 enduro motorcycle at race tracks in that area. 

After training, his next stop was the Da Nang airport in Vietnam, where the Marines were on one side and the Air Force was on the other.

Amos worked on the F-4 Phantom Jet Missile Guidance Systems, which was “the primo jet back in the ’60s,” saying he spent a lot of time in those cockpits repairing the damaged fighter-bomber jets and rode in one of them to check the radar.

He experienced a close call when the airport got bombed and he was out working, saying the first one hit 175,000 pounds of JP-5 jet fuel storage that “lit everything up”with the last one taking out a C-130. He and another Marine climbed on top of a bomb rack and thought it would be over quickly if it got hit, but they were lucky and escaped injury. 

Their living quarters were a bombed-out church, and he said he got ranked pretty quickly, ran the night shift and also made sergeant. 

He got out in July 1971 and said it was a good experience for a 21-year-old kid, saying all the education he received in the Marines has helped him throughout his life.

Another family Vietnam veteran sharing his story is my stepdad, David Sigmund. He was raised on a farm in Mt. Vernon, South Dakota,  graduating from Mt. Vernon High School in 1966 and drafted in the U.S. Army in 1968.

I asked how he felt when he received his draft notice.

“If I make it, I’ll make it — or I won’t,” he said.

He received his training in Arizona and Ft. Lewis, Washington, and he claimed he peeled a lot of potatoes in boot camp.

“I was a private. I got through it all right and got back home. It was an all right deal. I never complained about the military service. You just had to make do with what the good Lord said for you to do.”

Serving in Puerto Rico as a clerk typist, he performed other duties on base.

“When the ships would come in with bodies, I had to type up the paperwork and applications so the families could get their benefits. I also participated in ceremonies honoring the deceased and guard duties,” he continued, “I got through it all right and got back home. I was lucky,” he said.

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