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Drafted: My Year in Vietnam as a Gay Anti-War Soldier (An Excerpt)

By Harry Haines

Like most other young guys in 1969, I spent a lot of time figuring out how to avoid the Vietnam War draft. As I completed my undergrad degree at Southern Illinois University, I knew my time was running out. I had managed to secure the college deferment, and I even made the smart move of transferring my Selective Service board from my native New Jersey to Illinois, gaining some extra time as the bureaucracy slowly played out.

A couple of fellow students inspired me with their Beat the Draft stories. One of them returned to campus after a holiday trip back home to Chicago and proudly announced that his father had bribed the right Selective Service operative with $4,000. He was home free with a coveted 4-F draft designation. We all wondered how to scrape together $4,000.

The other guy had the good luck to be taken out by his buddies on a drunken spree on the night before his induction physical was scheduled 123 miles away in St. Louis. The guy passed out from drink, so his pals left him slouched on the bench at the bus pick-up. In the middle of the night, he fell off the bench, rolled into the gutter, and defecated in his pants. When the St. Louis bus arrived, he managed to pull himself on board.

At that most humiliating moment in the Army physical examination, when the line-up of naked young men were ordered to lean over, spread their cheeks, and present themselves for hemorrhoid inspection, he did exactly what he was told. Only, no member of the medical team would have anything to do with his filthy rear end. Rack up another 4-F! When the guy finally got back to Carbondale, the party resumed, and we hailed him as a hero, wondering if we might get away with the same ploy.

I had a vested interest in failing the physical. For me, college was a way out and up from the working class. In fact, I was the first member of my family to earn a degree, and I was bound for a TV news anchor job in Florida. Boxes were packed. Used car was bought. And I had a line on a cheap apartment in Jacksonville. By 1969, we all knew that Vietnam was a lost cause. Like Dick Cheney, a champion recipient of six draft deferments, I had other plans.

All I had to do was take the bus to the St. Louis induction center and fail the physical exam. I had two things going for me, or so I thought. First, my eyesight. I am near-sighted in one eye, far-sighted in the other. My depth perception was so bad that I had a hard time understanding the concept of perspective in my Renaissance art class. On those unhappy days in high school when we were turned out to play ball, I was consistently knocked on the head as I tried desperately to catch the damned thing out in center field.

As I told the coach, "I can't see the ball until it's right in front of my face, and then it's too late." Who would trust such a person with a weapon?

Second, I had discovered my sexual orientation in college, and it was gay, specifically precluding me from military service. The "gay thing," as I secretly called it, was my ace, my get-out-of-Nam card, my ticket to ride to my first real job in the news business. But I had to play it smart.

I knew that I could increase my chances of rejection if I had some "good paper," a medical record that identified me as a homosexual, something official that I could present to the examiners. So, off I went to the campus counseling office. My assigned shrink turned out to be a grad student in psychology who told me, "Look, I don't know anything about you guys, I just don't like it when you molest children. And you really don't look like a homosexual." So, that plan didn't work out. I decided to take my chances without the paper work.

The induction physical was not altogether unpleasant. For one thing, I was surrounded by other young guys, and a lot of them looked really hot in their underwear. Little did I know that similar visuals would come my way over the next couple of years, one of the erotic perks of the Green Machine.

The eye exam lasted about ten minutes. I was approved for military service with the proviso that I would always have to wear my Army glasses. The "gay thing" took a little longer. At the beginning of the process, we were told to fill out a questionnaire that included little boxes for us to check off items that pertained to us. For example, the Army wanted to know if I had ever been a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American volunteer unit that fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War back in the 1930's. Membership in this heroic unit would have made me about 60 years old in 1969, so there was no point in checking it off, as much as I admired the brave Americans who fought against Franco.

But I did check off "homosexual tendencies," my ace in the Game of Draft. Granted, the "gay thing," by 1969, had become more of a trend than just a tendency, but the Army was apparently interested in knowing if I was just tilting in that direction, not a fully paid-up member of the homo tribe, which I was. So, I was interviewed by a civilian shrink working on contract for the Army, and I made the big mistake of not lunging across his desk and kissing him on the lips.

The guy asked me if I liked women, and I said yes, another big mistake. He asked me if I had dated women, and I foolishly told the truth. He asked me if I had experienced orgasm as a result of intercourse with a woman, and again I told him yes. Sex with men was not among the questions.

I could have described in great detail the hot affair I had experienced with another student who eventually dumped me, because he was afraid of discovery. I had nursed a broken heart for more than a year, but my first big love affair was not on the shrink's agenda. I could have described in detail the dormitory orgies that included a couple of top tier basketball players and a guy who later helped bomb Hanoi as an Air Force pilot. I might even have talked about the furtive locker room action that followed my daily four mile run as the unofficial mascot of the cross country team, but I never had the chance.

Nope. I was officially categorized as a Grade-A, All-American straight guy, a member of the heterosexual club, butch beef on the hoof. And I was soon headed for basic training at Fort Leonard Wood.

I would have done better if I had shit my pants.

Harry W. Haines was born in Mount Holly, New Jersey and was drafted, much against his better judgment, in 1969. He served in the US Army until 1971, including one tour of duty in South Vietnam. He has been a professor of communication for 40 years and is writing a memoir about his experience as a gay, anti-war soldier. He teaches at Montclair State University.