(30) "The Vietnam Draft Years. What Do You Owe A War You Never Fought?"

The Vietnam draft turned everyday life into a waiting room, and we still remember the feeling. One minute we are laughing about imaginary “Spotify peace prizes” and our weird little podcast rankings, and the next we are back at Selective Service registration, staring down the possibility of Vietnam and realizing how random the whole system could be. If you have ever wondered why that era left such a long shadow, this conversation lays it out in plain language and lived detail.

We talk through how the draft lottery worked, what it meant to pull a low number, and why people tried anything to avoid going. Flat feet, blood pressure tricks, joining a different branch, ROTC, Canada, even self-inflicted injuries get mentioned, not for shock value but to show the real desperation behind “draft dodging.” We also share what ROTC and basic training felt like on the ground: marching, map reading, inspections, medals, and the ridiculous shoe polish schemes that seemed smart until they blew up in your face.

The hardest part is what comes after the facts: the shame some of us carried for not serving, and the relief of hearing from a Vietnam veteran that people are built for different kinds of service. We touch on guns and the M16, the strange satisfaction of learning the mechanics, and the complicated mix of pride, fear, and doubt that still shows up decades later. If this brings up memories for you or your family, listen, then subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more people can find these stories. What is one detail from the draft era you think people today misunderstand?

Please leave us your comments, text me, DM me, give me your thoughts.  what works and what doesn't land?  We want to improve.

thanks for listening

Joe

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hey

Hits, Countries, And Pickpocket Glory

SPEAKER_00 0:18

everybody, it's Pilp Down Man and the Cardiff Giant, and we are now at episode 30.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

3030.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

That's right. That's my partner, Edward Penn. I'm Joe Flush. Call them awards. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Kudos. Kudos to us.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I would call them peace prizes. But don't you think? Don't you think we might as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

I mean, you know, I've I've always wanted the Peace Prize. Maybe somebody could just mix one up for us.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah, the Spotify Peace Prize.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah, I like that. You know, I've never had one. I'd also like to have a, you know, I'm envious of those people who had purple hearts. Now I'm re I'm actually reporting something that someone else said, as you know. So I really am not envious of a purple heart. We'll just leave it at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Right. Uh yeah, I I would rather pass on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Well, I d I do want to mention though, when the uh when we got our last report, it said that I mean first of all, we've gotten now over eleven hundred hits, and uh we've got thirty two countries, or how many countries?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I think I think you said thirty two.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, and and we've had uh whole lot come out of Vietnam. That's great. Yeah, well, kinda, I mean uh you know, when I was younger, obviously I was scared to death that I'd have to go to Vietnam. Uh, but time changes everything, and I'm not afraid. In fact, my podiatrist is a Vietnamese woman, and she's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Oh, I thought maybe she suggested that you go to Vietnam and walk around a little bit with their, you know, with your good shoes, you know. Yeah, she recommended shoes.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

She has some stories, man. I tell you what, I wish I could get I wish I could get her because she was uh she was a little like on one of the last boats or planes and all that to get the hell out. So we've talked about that. Hey, but also, Ed, I want to mention that we are number one now. Number one in pickpockets. Pickpockets brought pickpockets podcasts. Yeah. Interesting. Uh the the pick the mention of pickpockets, we are now number one, and what that tells me is nobody else has done any.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, because we've only done one.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

We did one. It was episode 18, and I thought it was a great story. I mean, it mostly involved you. Yeah, yeah. But I enjoyed it as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Well, we could live off our laurels for a while or do another one, you know, and just double up, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Just what maybe we should go out and get our pockets picked again just to have something to talk about. That's right. Well, I'd like to not do that. But anyway, in Vietnam. Well

Turning Toward Vietnam Draft Memories

SPEAKER_00 3:27

uh here was my experience. I got to think.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

So hold on, let's back up a little bit. So there's no there's no really uh new news or news, no really old news to to move up to this, nothing really happy to move up to this somber uh subject. So let's just jump in it. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah, you know, well, I you know, we had to go to registration, how had the register with uh you know, with our particular counties and all that.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

With selective service.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Selective service, thank you. Thank you. You can tell that I haven't prepared for this, so uh selective service, and and so I did, and when I went 18.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

When we were 18 years old.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, yeah. And when I went there, uh the uh the woman that was the head of the thing, she started asking all kinds of questions, and she asked me things like about flat feet, and you know, what what what was the song? I'm blind as a bat, my feet are flat, and I always carry a purse. You remember this?

SPEAKER_01 4:37

I I sort of remember that. That's a memory that I didn't keep necessarily, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I didn't think I did either, but uh there and there it is. Um and she uh and so I said, Yeah, I do have flat feet, but you know, doesn't keep me from doing anything. And she looked at me eye to eye and said, Uh, you think that's gonna keep you out of going to Vietnam? I'll be there watching when you get on the bus.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Or or she said, let's see those flat feet right now.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

I'll be yeah, I would have been willing to share that.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Not drop your trousers. Not drop your trousers. Go ahead and just let me see your feet.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

I how is uh flat feet, how was that a thing? I mean, is that I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

I I listen, if the the question is, how's flat feet a thing? Well, if you've ever had plantar spasciitis, you know that that could be a problem in combat when you can barely walk. But yeah, but I would think they'd say, get your butt out there and do it anyway. You know, that's not gonna be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

But that was, yeah, she was gonna smile and wave at me as they got on the bus, she said.

Draft Dodges And Harsh Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Well, people did all kinds of stuff to get out of the draft though, Joe, if you remember. Uh I had friends and relatives who who decided they could fetch could run their blood pressure up in a natural sort of way, and it couldn't be detected. They did it. They did it and got and kept out of the draft.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

And uh Well, I heard things like uh and I I'm not gonna point exactly where, but there was a guy uh around me that shot a toe off.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Oh gosh, that wouldn't be worth it for me, would it you?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

No, no, I mean especially with all the problems I'm having with my left foot. And I can't imagine when you're a young person, you got your whole life ahead of you. But I guess some people, you know, I I can understand how you make that choice if you don't want to die in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Well, it's a it's a it's a uh it's not a very large price to pay when you think of it, a toe for your life. Uh how the draft was set up, Joe. And I'll add to it, or I can I Yeah, you go ahead. All right.

How The Draft Lottery Worked

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Well, they set up a lottery uh sometime in I think it was 1966. And it's not the kind of lottery you want to win. It's not that kind of lottery. So each year that uh uh young men, not women, just young men, turned 19. Their birth year, for example, uh my birth year was 52. Uh when the the year that I turned 19, they put off the birth dates into a hopper. And I guess they included uh leap leap year also, they'd have to because there'd be people born on uh February 29th. Um so anyway, um they they they choose and they would televise it a lot of times. I don't know whether you remember that or not, but some of them televised. And uh uh people who you know, and I was sort of interested in it my years that I wasn't eligible, but I was really interested in it the year that I was eligible, simply because, and I've hit on this a couple times before, I'd sat out of school for a semester, fully knowing, fully aware that I could get picked up by I could get drafted. And um, but anyway, um my number was something like 60. They picked my number 60 out of the hopper October 1st uh of that year, and I was number 60, 62.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, I think that was in the 80s, but yeah, which which was not good either.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Because they if you remember they drafted all the way through the 140s and 150s.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

So anyway, I uh there were people doing different things to get out of the draft during those times. And I just mentioned one they try to uh to feign some sort of malady, some sort of disease or or challenge or whatever that would make them ineligible for the draft. Fat uh flat feet obviously wasn't one of them that they they cared a whole lot about. Um but uh different people did different things, and the real the real options were to get drafted or and and insert your time in a rap rice paddy in Vietnam or join another branch of the service, one that wasn't necessarily sending people directly into the rice patties like the Air Force and Navy, uh or go to Canada and and stay there and and uh and hope that uh one day you could come back. As it turned out, people could come back from Canada, and we've talked about the case.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah, we didn't know that at the time, though.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

No, we didn't know it at the time.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

And I didn't feel like I had any of those options. But I w I did want to go to college. I knew I wanted to go to college.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

But you didn't spend that semester, you were smart, you just thought I I I could stay in, I can make the grades to stay in, but I didn't have much choice. My grades were absolutely horrible. My mother was sick, she was dying of cancer at the time. My dad was out of his head, and it was just a bad home life, so I didn't really give a rat's butt where I went and why.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

So anyway, I you know, don't call me smart. I I because I think I kind of fell into it, but I was uh way, way, way immature. And uh I thought, well, I I'll have five, I'll have four years to get my crap together and and see what to do. And I

College, ROTC, And Officer Risks

SPEAKER_00 10:11

knew at EKU they had uh ROTC, which you could go four years in ROTC and uh come out a second lieutenant.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And so I thought, well, that makes more sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

It's way, way, way more desirable to be an officer in the military than it is to be a grunt, um uh uh an infantry guy. Way more way better.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Well well, I was told not, uh because uh the uh the sergeant that I had uh told me that he said the problem with he said second lieutenants are he's put in dangerous situations in Vietnam. He said percentage-wise, you got to avoid the enemy, and you have to avoid your own people.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yeah, I've heard those stories.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

And uh he said that so uh he said I don't know if it's uh a big advantage or not, but I would I would say, and I told him I was gonna go four years, and he said, do the two years and then talk to me. So I did I did the two years, and I I actually liked the ROTC. Only part I didn't like was the uniform stuff and you know the marching around, but I enjoyed like the uh figuring out the maps and you know all the math-related things.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

But the uniform per se, didn't you think that was a pretty daggone cool uniform to put on? I always did.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

I loved I loved well, no, I I didn't care for it.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I loved it. I really did.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Did you have to well you wore it in the military, so yeah. I uh the thing I wore for ROTC, I don't know, was all that cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Um dress blues were my favorite. I wore those dress blues. I loved those dress blues, I'd wear them in the airport. I love those bad boys. I really did.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

The funny thing was, and I I can just picture you when you get medals and stuff and you have to put them on there.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

I had one.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Did you?

SPEAKER_01 12:18

One.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Well, I bet I'll bet you you polished the hell out of that thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Well, ask me what it's for.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

What was it for?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

That's the story. Well, it was for uh being in the military. That's all that that was all the department was. And man, I really donned that I really donned that uh that medal out with pride and that wore it straight on my pocket on the front of my dress blues.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Well, that's probably more impressive than mine since I was in ROTC. You know, they want to give you as many as possible so you get fired up and going ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Let's back up. I want to talk to you, we'll get too far ahead, and there was something I wanted to say about a little while back. Do you know why you were uh you were in tr you might have been in trouble with your own um your own troops as a second lieutenant?

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Oh yeah, because I mean a lot of it was drug related. And you know, there were a lot a lot of guys, uh grunts that didn't want to go. Right. And when they got there, that's what they did. They did drugs and stuff. And they don't want and they didn't want any fresh guy out of college.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

That was gonna be what I was gonna say. Back up again. So a lot of the people a lot of people that we were in the military with had a choice of either going into the military or going to jail. You could do that back then for infraction. They decided they'd rather go in the army or the air force or the navy or the marines. But but the what you said just then hit directly on it. What I was trying to trying to elicit from you is you're a hot shot ass, aren't you? You little two you're little you're a little uh second Louis Lieutenant Barr, aren't you? You're a smart boy, you're a college boy, aren't you? Well, we'll see about that.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

That's a kind of thing I heard when I went to Bellknap, too.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Oh yeah, same, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

This is the same thing. But yeah, that was considered a you know, they they weren't happy with you little college boys and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

You're smarter than everybody else, aren't you? Uh little college boy.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

So talking about the metals though, uh, you know, they told us to polish the metals and polish your shoes, and I'm sure I know you, so you polished your shoes until uh probably you were bleeding on the hands and six hours, six hours on average.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Six hours on every time.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Yeah, and you know how important I thought it was, so I didn't really. I put a little shoe polish on the thing, but then one time I'm good, and I couldn't get it to shine the spit shine that's a good one. Oh, I could, I could, and uh what was it, the brassho for the metals? Wasn't it brass?

SPEAKER_01 15:01

You know, like I said, I didn't have to worry much about that. I had one. So okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Well, there were guys that did that, and I'm you know, at the time, I'd I was still trying to find out who I was and what I wanted to be.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Uh and I hit I think I'll find out by next Thursday, uh, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Afternoon or morning?

SPEAKER_00 15:22

I don't know. Uh I'll give you a time later.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Uh uh, I'd like to uh tell a quick uh shoe polish story, and it'll I'll make it quick. And

Shoe Shine Hacks And Inspection Trouble

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I think I've hit up.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

No, don't don't make it quick. We have plenty of time. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

I think I've hit up on it, hit on it maybe on a um former on a previous episode, but uh we we we could get to go into San Antonio. I was a Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and occasionally we'd get to go into town on the weekend, even in basic training, they'd say, get out of here, come back at this time. So we'd go downtown. Well, there's a guy downtown who who had a shoe shine stand, uh, an old black fellow, a really nice guy, but he he'd get he'd shine our shoes, but he would he would paint them with this lacquer, and he said, That's gonna be just as good as a spit shine, and they'll never know the difference. Well, about 10 or 12 of us, 15 of us, went down there and got our shoes shine painted, backslash painted with black paint, and came back, and after two or three days, that paint began to break, and it and it would make a crease, it made it broke off and made creases in all the shoes, and uh and we caught hell for it, of course. Okay. We thought we were smart, and but we were found out and we weren't nearly as smart. We poured it.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

I'm I'm surprised you did that because I thought you would just have fun polishing all damn day.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Well, I I I did and didn't. I thought my buddies are gonna do this, I'm gonna do it too, and see how it goes. Well, it didn't go well for any of us.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

So we were we were uh being inspected. Uh you we got inspected every time that there was class. Right. And uh the the guy came over to me and said, Your shoes are not good, and neither, he said, but your medals are terrible. He said, and he gave me like three demerits. I don't even remember what the demerits were. Yeah. I don't even remember what the punishment was. But I I said, okay, yeah, yeah, I'll do better. And then I came back to the room and I didn't do anything. And so I go back to class about three days later.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

And he said that's better. He said that's way better.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Well, you don't get ahead of me, did okay.

unknown 17:42

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah, we we went to the we it was raining, so we were marching in the football stadiums. The light was a little less. Yeah. And he came in there and said, that's fantastic. And he gave me merits. And I hadn't done anything. But oh one of the other things, and I don't know, this might might not be, I'm pretty sure it's not politically correct, but there was a little person in our class as well. And when we marched, and that damn rifle that he carried, well, we we would make left and rights and stuff, and that thing, I was swinging trying to hide my head from the end of that rifle.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

It was even with your even with your head, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Oh, yeah. It was like it was like right in my face. Uh but yeah, I did enjoy the map reading stuff. It really kind of touched the things that I liked, and I would say you probably didn't wouldn't like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Cartography. That was cart that's called cartography.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh it made me think in a different way than I had with uh geography and all that kind of stuff. But but every you know, my skill in math uh helped in that. Of course, yeah. I liked it, and I actually liked the sergeant a lot. And what he told me was when I got ready to sign for the last two years, he came to me and put put his hand on mine and said, You're not what we want.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

You said thanks.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

He said, he said, listen, he said that war is about to end. Uh don't be signing up for any of it. He said, You're not the kind of person to be good in the military. And he said, uh, and this is a good thing. You asked him any damn questions. He said, yes. He said, you're smart, you're very smart, and we don't want, we want people that are smart, but uh don't ask any questions. And he said, uh, we want them smart enough to where they just follow the orders. That's right. And he said, You're you're smart enough where you ask questions. We don't want that. And I thought that was hilarious. I didn't know whether to be insulted or what, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

But it's sort of a back-handed compliment. You know what you would have been good at? Um, you would have been a good navigator. I know you wouldn't have wanted to do that in a plane, but you would have been a great navigator because it's all about coordinates on a map, you know. So you you you'd be you would have been great at that. You really would have.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

I I'll take your word for it. I I'm not crazy about planes, so uh Well, maybe except for that part. Yeah, maybe I could be a ground navigator or something.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Maybe, possibly.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

I don't know, man. That's uh that would scare me too. That's a lot of responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

You know what my favorite part of the military was, and you're gonna say, that's after I tell you, you're gonna say, well, that sounds about right. I

Why Marching Felt Like Home

SPEAKER_01 20:48

really, I really, really dug marching. I liked it. I liked it a lot. And I could orders pretty quickly, and I I I knew how to do it, and it was sort of mindless. I could think about something else as I was doing it, and uh, I look forward to our our drills out on the drill pad. Just marching.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

I like we are we are different, Ed.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

And and and I would you know, you're talking about just relaxing into it. I'd like to see you marching with a little person in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Well, I coincidentally I had one. Oh, did you? Yeah. Here's what happened with that. I I'm I'm I might have said something about it on a previous episode, but I'll talk a little bit about it again. Um, I had uh a young uh Mexican kid that was uh in front of me. We were in files, columns, and I was directly behind him. He was shorter than me, and they usually tried to put the tallest person there at the uh head of the column. And but in this instance, there was a little Mexican guy in front of me. And uh I sort of knew him and didn't know him at all. Mexican American. And um his Spanish was was he speaks Spanish part of the time actually. Uh but Anyway, he was marching in front of me and we were out uh we were out on a on a parade and uh it was a big time parade. Uh we had the we did that eyes right thing at the at the stands where we uh uh had eyes right and salute and that kind of thing. But it was really a lot of fun. But he was out of step with the other five guys to his right. He was we were in the far left column, and he had to be in step, he had to be in step with them, he had to look to his right to follow them, and then each column would fall off off. You probably know that since you were in our but anyway, he was out of step, but I was stepping off the other five, the other four columns. I was keeping with uh track with them, so that meant that I was stepping on the back of sh his shoe every single time, and and I remember it like it was yesterday. He said, Man, I'm gonna kick your ass. And I said, What it what I said, what are you talking about? We were talking as we were marching, and uh I said, You need to get get in step, look to the right and get in step. And he never would get in step, and I walked his shoes, both his shoes, off the back of his heels, both of them. My shoes took the his shoes off as he was marching. So then he was just scooting along. He was scooting along in his shoes, and he said, Man, I know what your barracks is, man. I'm gonna kick your ass when I find out where you are, blah, blah, blah. But anyway, you know, I sort of apologize a little bit to him afterwards, and I said, You got you had to get in step. You were out of step with everybody cure right. Everybody.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah, it does, it does kind of depend on everybody. Yes, yes. But I I you know, I I got it and I was good at it, but I didn't like it. No, it I'm I'm really kind of a guy who's out of step with everything.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Well, yeah, that I I was gonna say say that, which is kind of a good thing, I think, probably for for you.

Shame, Service, And Self Forgiveness

SPEAKER_00 23:59

I'm a little bit out of step with the I will say one one thing about all this that there was some shame for me that I wasn't uh that I didn't want to go to the military. That I didn't want, you know, because I mean I'm from a town of 350 people. And uh I just felt like because I didn't go in the military, I didn't serve my time, I didn't it took me a long, long time to forgive myself for for not doing that. And finally, just somebody, I it was somebody who'd been over there. I'm not gonna mention him because he's probably listening, but he told me uh people are good at different things.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

And he said, you're not you're not less than a hero just because you don't go in and say you don't want to kill anybody and you don't want to be killed. That's you know, that's the way you feel. And uh he said, he said, you know, he you'll have ways to help people along the way, and I th I think I have, Ed. I I I still uh sometimes get that feeling that maybe I didn't do my part.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

I think it's normal. I think uh all of us did a little bit, thought we could do more knowing that people got killed on our behalf, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Well, you did your part though. You went you saved us in North Dakota.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Well, you know, we had to fear the Canadians at the time. So I yeah, I was running on the border there, and not one Canadian got across that border that we didn't know about, actually, you know, so it was stupid we were good.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

I would have been the danger would have been me running to Canada. But uh yeah, it it's hard to explain to people.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Uh it affected us. It's it well obviously it affected us because we still think about it today. And well, I'm not I'm not trying to say it affected us like those families who lost family members. That no.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Of course not.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

It's uh not that at all, but it affected a whole generation of people in in a lot of different ways, and we're still suffering for from it a little bit, even even to this day, I think, probably.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yeah, I and I I do still uh struggle with that part that maybe I didn't do my part. But uh but I think my friend is right, and that everybody has different skills, and uh nobody ever met me that said, Man, I guess that guy would make a good soldier. Uh I I didn't even shoot guns. I mean, I shot a gun, I shot a shotgun one time in my life. Uh my dad my my dad wanted to take me bird hunting, and uh first I was mad at him because uh I had a hunting dog, uh, English setter, and that dog didn't know anything about hunting, and dad was trying to dad would whack him with the butt of the gun and stuff. And so I was kind of mad about that. I thought he's a dog, he didn't know anything. Dad was just trying to teach him. But I uh yeah, I I got his shotgun, shot once, and uh next thing I know is picking myself up off the no, yeah, it was probably a double barrel shotgun, I would guess. Yeah, and uh had mud up the barrels and all that. I mean, I made a mess out of it. And so I I just thought, well, again, if I'd known it at that time, not for me.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Well, it's it's that's funny. Um, I've shot, it's you know, we're Kentuckians and we're sort of expected to know a little bit about guns. We're Kentuckians, by God.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

But uh I've shot an M16 way more, way, way, way more than any other type of firearm. Way more.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

You know, when you when you say that what you do bring back some memories for me because they I did shoot guns.

Guns, The M16, And Closing Out

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Uh once again, I shot the M16 at the firing range. Yeah, and I was really good at it. Yeah. Uh they would bring back the target, man. I was right there. So I I had some skill in it, but man, after after ROCC, I never did it again.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

And it was fun. It was fun to fire that off, too, wasn't it? It was a blast.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

It didn't quite it didn't quite have the kick of uh double brick.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

No, it was really interesting. Really interesting. I liked it. One of the other things, let me just say one other thing about firearms. Um, as you know, I'm not particularly mechanically inclined, but I could take that M16 apart um with my eyes closed and put it back together. Uh and we and we learned how to do that one day. We spent a couple hours, and so I started closing my eyes and trying to figure out if I could get it back together. And I could. I could put it back together in about three or four different moves, and and it was back together. So I was ready to be shot in Vietnam. I just I was ready for it, but uh fortunately I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

I was I was good at taking the rifle apart and putting it back together. I could do it really fast.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Uh well, it was just like working a puzzle. I didn't really uh I didn't think that you know it was something I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah. Uh but anyway, well listen, Ed, I I think we're running to pretty close to 30 minutes here. And I wasn't sure we'd go this far, but uh there was a lot we left out.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Yeah, I I think so.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

We'll actually mention Dan Quayle and uh and there. I I think we'll save that for another time.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

I think I mentioned Dan Quayle prior to us putting the episode on, though, maybe, but maybe if we did, I can't remember at the beginning of the episode. But yeah, we can talk about Dan Dan Quayle earlier or later on, and uh because he was significant in in the Vietnam War, not not at all.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

He was significant in a different sort of way, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

But uh and I don't does anybody remember Dan Quayle now?

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Yeah, we'd have to tell people who Dan Quayle was.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

But uh we'll we'll get to that sometime. We'll maybe we'll do that with another one of these uh bump up against celebrities, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yeah, why and why in the world would people remember vice presidents and presidents' names? Why would they remember that something as trivial as that? I mean, seriously.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Well, maybe so now exactly.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

But uh yeah, I do want to mention pickpocketing one more time just so we get another hit on the pickpocket scale. So pickpocket, why don't you get us out of here?