When I was a teen, I leapt and gamboled as if I were a young colt; I ran for the pure joy of it, and showed off my springs by jumping up to slap street signs. One day while on the way home from visiting with my cousins, I leaped up to slap a street sign which was mounted on a telephone pole near the curb. I came down on the edge of the curb, the toes of my foot on the curb, and my heel over the side. This hurt — a lot — but I managed to limp home, where I iced it, and crawled up the steps to my room and laid down in pain. I limped for a week, and eventually, the swelling went down. No doctor was involved in this adventure, as there was no blood, but for years afterward, I believed that I had broken my left foot.
Upon turning 18, I did what was required by law and reported to the Armed Forces Induction Center where I was examined by doctors to determine my fitness for military duty. I stripped, coughed, urinated and took tests, all while heeding the command, “DO NOT LOSE THIS PAPERWORK!” At the end of the trial, someone in a military uniform — a person I believed to be a doctor — asked me to stand straight, with my feet together. This person examined my feet from the front and the back, made some marks on a form, then told me that the armed forces did not think that a combat boot could be fitted on my left foot. I was sent to a chapel-like office, and sat in a small cubicle, where I was joined by a chaplain. The clergyman slid a booklet across the table: “Opportunities For The Handicapped.” There was a brief talk about hope, and I went back to the lockers where I had left my thrift store combat boots. I laced them up and walked back 5 miles to my home. That fall, I received a draft card, which listed my status as “1Y,” a classification I took to mean, “exempt, unless the Russians are pouring over the walls.” I joined my high school’s swim team; tried out for both football and track. I passed on the more combative and aggressive sports, and stayed in the water for four years.
My eldest daughter once said to me that she was glad that I had not gone to Vietnam. I told her what I have told others: I did not choose not to serve. In his poem, “The Unknown Citizen,” W.H. Auden wrote, “When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.” Had I been chosen, I would have served, but my 18-year-old self did not rage against the rejection: I took my pamphlet, and went back to school and work, and my feet caused me no problems. Now that I am in the autumn of my years, alcohol and red meat have helped gout to take hold in my joints, from elbow to wrist to ankles and toes. A neurologist examined x-rays of my left foot, which showed that I have gout in my toe, which had been there for a long time. But there was no sign of a healed break, but a clear indication of a bone spur.
I am more than 50 years away from my selective service examination, and though I have only recently learned of a bone spur, I recall very clearly the reason why I was rejected for service in the armed forces: My left foot.