The Untouchables

By Jerry Mack Grubbs

The acceptable kill rate was four to one. I could fulfill my obligation to my country if I killed four of the enemy before I got killed. After that, my body could be shipped back to the states draped publicly in an American flag and delivered home for my family to mourn privately. My government would provide three hundred dollars for my burial expenses and my name would appear on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial. But there would be no future, no wife, and no children to bounce on my knee.

It would be years before I realized how discriminating the war was. Poor blacks and whites not in college were hit the hardest. The poor were targeted as though they were the most dispensable. I guess that is the way it has always been. The poor filled the ranks of the bulging surge of humanity being shipped to South East Asia. Fifty-eight thousand would not return alive. Many more would come home with serious wounds both physical and emotional. This was the destiny of many men during the Vietnam years.  For those who lived, what they saw and what they endured changed them forever.

But war would not be my destiny, my future. The knowledge of my destiny was not derived from the ability to see into the future. It came from a priesthood blessing I received in which I was promised that I would be sealed up against the war. I have never understood why I should be sealed up against that war while so many others were not. But I have an outpouring of gratitude that I was spared the experiences that transpired in that foreign land.

For us here at home the message was clear. You want to stay out of Vietnam? Go to college. That wasn't a problem for me because I always planned to go to college. Upon high school graduation I registered for the draft as required by law. I also turned in all the necessary papers showing my college acceptance and received a 2-S deferment. I became one of the untouchables. I could not be drafted so long as I held a 2-S deferment. I didn't go to college to dodge the draft although I didn't want to go to war.  However, regardless of my circumstances I would not have fled to Canada or Mexico to evade the hungry war machine gobbling up young me by the thousands. Although I was temporarily protected from war with my deferment, I was not in sympathy with the demonstrations taking place on campuses across the nation. I felt it would have been a betrayal of the servicemen already caught in a crushing vice between the Viet Cong and politics.

Our country was being torn apart. The irony of it all was that in Vietnam the military leaders were hovering above the firefight high enough to stay clear of enemy fire while others suffered and died on both sides. On college campuses and in the city streets the principal instigators of the demonstrations would stir up the populace and when the threat of police interaction was present, they would conveniently slink away, leaving the stirred-up students to take the brunt of the fight. No matter where you were, here at home or in South East Asia, the rhetoric was the same: propaganda, propaganda, and more propaganda. I struggled to understand the truth and where it was hiding.

After my freshman year of college I planned to serve a mission for the LDS Church. A problem arose almost immediately. My local draft board refused to issue me a 4-F deferment for missionary service. Without that deferment I could not serve a mission. The draft board accused me of requesting to serve a mission to avoid the draft. I reminded the draft board that I already had a college deferment and could retain that 2-S status for four years by staying in school. I desired to serve a mission because I wanted to make a difference in people's lives. On appeal, the draft board agreed to grant me a 4-F deferment on the condition that I would voluntarily extend my draft eligibility by ten years.

The draft board expected me to choke on that stipulation and withdraw my appeal. But I knew something they did not know.  I had a blessing that sealed me up against the war. I signed the draft extension papers and within three months I was saying goodbye to my family and heading to the language training center to learn Spanish. I had been called to serve in the West Spanish American Mission. After three months of language training, I boarded a night train with seven other missionaries headed for the mission headquarters in East Los Angeles. Los Angeles had the second largest Spanish speaking population on this continent next to Mexico City. When I filled out my missionary papers there was a place to list my requested area of service. I requested an English speaking mission outside of the United States. I received a mission call to serve Spanish speaking people in California, Arizona and Nevada. Someone had more faith in me than I had in myself by sending me to a Spanish speaking mission. I had two years of high school Spanish and I wasn't a star pupil.

On that night train to Los Angeles as I sorted through my papers it occurred to me that my 4-F deferment would expire three months before the completion of my mission. I had been granted a two year deferment and not one day more. When requesting the missionary deferment I did not know that I would be called to serve a foreign speaking mission. The three months spent in the language training center did not count toward my two years of missionary service. I gulped and my throat went dry as cotton. I would be reclassified 1-A for the draft three months before I completed my mission. What this meant was that there was a high probability that I would be drafted before I was able to get reenrolled in college. Then I remembered the blessing I received and my heart was quieted. I shrugged my shoulders and said to myself that it would all work out.

True to their word the draft board reclassified me 1-A September 7th, 1967, three months before returning home from my mission. Within a week after my arrival I was ordered to report to the Gregg County Draft Board. As I opened the letter and read the instructions, I momentarily wavered in my faith of the blessing I received several years earlier. Had I misinterpreted the meaning of "sealed up against the war"? Maybe sealed up meant sealed up in a coffin, or maybe it meant sealed up against death but I would still be required to go to South East Asia. Then I remembered an old familiar saying about life, "shallow brooks are noisy but still waters run deep." Although I didn't fully understand why at the time, that little saying calmed me. My blessing was not from a shallow source and the noise of fear I was hearing in my mind wasn't from still waters. I remember telling myself, "Be still, be calm, I can do this, whatever comes."

It was difficult to be still and calm. My life was a tangle of emotions. My old girlfriend was engaged to marry Pat Cunningham. My mind knew that this was the right thing for her but my heart wasn't playing a different tune. I also had to report to the draft board in just a few days. I was shuffling around the house, just home from my mission with nothing to keep me busy. Mark, an old high school friend who heard that I was home called and asked if I wanted to go to a rally. "What kind of rally?" I asked. "An anti-war demonstration," Mark said.  I thought it was strange that Mark would be interested in an anti-war demonstration since he just returned from Vietnam. But we were bored and decided we would go check it out. The crowd was peaceful but disorganized. They were milling around on the steps of the courthouse. I wondered what good a demonstration would do at eight o'clock in the evening in front the courthouse. The only people who would be in there at this time of evening would be the janitors.

I approached a shaggy haired young man who appeared to be in his early twenties. He was wear bell-bottom knit pants with an orange tie-dyed tee shirt a couple of sizes too small. I no longer remember what was printed on the back of his shirt. I asked him why they were demonstrating after the courthouse was closed. He looked at me as if he was staring right through me and said, "Peace, brother and free love." I didn't know very much about love but I was smart enough to know that love wasn't free. Mark and I stood around on the outer fringe of the crowd for a few minutes but most of what I was hearing were trite sayings like "make love, not war," and all manner of degrading names for the president and the government. I turned to Mark and said, "I've seen enough and heard enough, let's go get a shake at the Golden Point drive-in." With a shrug of his shoulders Mark and I headed across the courthouse lawn toward his dad's pickup. He was quiet. We glanced back one more time to look at the small crowd that had gathered. I said, "They sounded like a bunch of broken records just saying the same thing over and over, repeating each other." Mark said, "Those kids are loaded on pot and their brains are in neutral. That's why they call it spaced out. I've seen a lot of it in the military."

As Mark and I enjoyed our ice cream shakes he spoke of his experiences in Vietnam and said that he hoped I'd never have to see what he had seen. Much of what he described was unimaginable to me. Our mood turned somber and after a while he took me home. As we said our goodbyes Mark looked at me and said, "Jerry, I'm not a hero and I didn't volunteer for duty in Vietnam. I hated every minute of every day I spent there. I was scared the entire year but what I see here at home scares me in a different way. I witnessed an anti-war demonstration outside the military gates of Fort Benning, Georgia before being sent home on leave. I'm not an expert on the Peace and Free Love Movement, but I haven't seen one person at those demonstrations I'd want to share a foxhole with. There was sadness in his countenance as he turned, got in the pickup and drove away.       

Two days later as I prepared to report to the draft board I was still thinking about the demonstrators on the courthouse steps a few nights earlier. In the Old Testament when Cain slew Abel it wasn't difficult to determine who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. The demonstrators referred to the president as a baby killer and all sorts of other degrading names. They didn't have one good thing to say about this country; the greatest country on earth. I wanted to be on the right side and I didn't want to give my life for an unjust cause but what was the right side? Then that same little saying came back to my mind, "shallow brooks are noisy but still waters run deep." Once again I told myself, "Be still, be calm, you can do this, whatever comes."

Looking back it seems odd that I was surprised to discover that I wasn't the only young man reporting to the draft board that day. We stood in a line and waited for our names to be called. As each person's name was called he stepped up to the front of the enlistment desk. When I heard my name called I moved forward to the desk as directed. An older woman with kind eyes and streaks of grey in her hair was seated at the desk. I waited for the list of questions that I had been hearing directed at each young man who had gone before me. Studying my papers for a moment she looked up at me and said, "Are you the Jerry Grubbs that dated Karen Young?" Surprised by her comment and while still trying to remember how I knew this lady, I said, "I am."   "Well young man, Karen's mother thinks very highly of you. Do you want to go to Vietnam?" she asked. "No, I want to go back to college but I got called up before I could get back into school." I explained. Without taking her eyes off me she took my draft papers, slid them into the top drawer of her desk and instructed me to turn around, walk out of the office without saying a word to anyone and send her verification of my readmission to college when it was official.

I did exactly as she instructed. I didn't even know her name until I was outside the courthouse and looked down at the small card she handed me that read, "Edie Brown, Secretary, Gregg County Draft Board." After learning her name, I still didn't know who she was. At that time all I knew was that she was a friend of Karen's mother and because of that association I had become one of the untouchables once more.

The country was still deeply divided concerning the war as I returned to college in the spring of 1968. Edie Brown had been true to her word. My 2-S deferment declaring me untouchable arrived in the mail as promised. That demonstration I went to was the only one I ever attended. Ironically, I never witnessed more words of hate than I heard at that peace demonstration on those courthouse steps in December 1967. I wasn't envious of the soldiers in harm's way nor was I willing to join forces with the demonstrators. Both soldiers and demonstrators seemed to be caught up in the propaganda of the moment . . . while some were following orders to kill, others were being incited to riot. I would have been wounded by the actions of the demonstrators if I had been a draftee crawling my way through a dangerous jungle trying to stay alive, fighting a war I did not understand but choosing to fight rather than slither across the border and hide.

After Karen's mother passed away, I found Edie Brown and we spent an afternoon together. She was confined to a wheelchair and living alone. Edie was experiencing the challenges and debilitating effects of sugar diabetes. It was the first time I had seen her or talked to her since that day long ago when I stood in front of her desk at the county draft board. She shared her life story with me and how she became acquainted with Karen's mother. The two of them attended high school together in Ohio. With another mutual friend they moved to Longview, Texas in 1940 and remained close friends all their lives, meeting regularly to play bridge. It was at those bridge games that Edie Brown came to know who Jerry Grubbs was and what he meant to her lifelong friend. Karen's mother shared with Edie the feelings she had for this boy whom she referred to as the son she always wanted.   

Karen's mother had touched my life in a way that I never imagined. When I began dating her daughter in 1960, I could not have guessed that she would be the influence that brought about the fulfilled my blessing of being sealed up against the war. By my promise, I never discussed with Karen's mother Edie Brown's involvement in my draft deferment. But I had experienced a miracle in my life and I have discovered that not all miracles are performed by unseen hands. Karen's mother's influence had spared me from the draft. What did I do to deserve that? I do not know. There were many men far better than I who suffered and died in that foreign land.

I had the opportunity to thank Edie Brown in person. One day, beyond this earth, I will thank Karen's mother; not just for her influence in keeping me untouchable from the draft but for all she taught me and her unconditional acceptance of me. I continue to be grateful for a blessing that sealed me up against the war that divided our nation forty years ago and as I look back, what a treat it was to have Karen's mom a part of the fulfillment of that blessing. Regardless of who was right and who was wrong in that war, the lesson I learned was to be still, be calm, there are forces at work that I may not understand at the moment.