Prologue

Most historians agree that the year 1968 was a decisive one in American history. It was a year of massive protests against the Vietnam war, of the fight to secure civil rights for Black Americans and other people of color, and of young people rebelling against the established political order in the country. There was significant rioting of Blacks in major American cities protesting the poverty in their communities and of the treatment of their people by local police departments.

The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert R. Kennedy occurred in 1968, which led to more rioting and protests. LBJ decided to not run for re-election, and all hell broke out at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, where Mayor Daley and the CPD were shown clubbing and attacking young people on nightly TV news programs protesting the election process. There was the rise of the Chicano movement, and many young Chicanos were actively protesting what was happening to Mexicans in the Southwest and California. I began to learn more about my Mexican heritage. 

So, here I was, a bright and poor Mexican boy at the University of Texas finishing up my degree in pharmacy. When I started out on my journey to become a pharmacist, I was expecting to return to El Paso after passing my pharmacy board exams and begin my career in the city I grew up in. I thought I had it made. But the draft interrupted my plans, as well as for many other young people.

In the fall semester of my second year, I decided to grow a beard as a mild protest to the political climate in the US about the Vietnam war and civil rights for Black and Brown Americans. Most of the pharmacy students were conservative by nature, coming from rural towns in Texas or from affluent neighborhoods in Dallas and Houston.

I started to read the local radical newspaper, called The Rag, which highlighted the protest movements against the war and treatment of minorities. I became familiar with prominent authors such as Norman Mailer, Grace Paley, and Dwight Macdonald in the Atlantic Monthly,Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, and the New Yorker, who were intellectually protesting the war. I definitely did not want to be drafted, but I knew if I were I would not leave the country for Canada. 

I saw how much power and influence the Democratic Party had lost in Texas by observing rich co-eds’ reactions to the death of RFK. Early in June after RFK had won the California Democratic primary over Gene McCarthy, the news of his assassination was being shown on TV in the lounge of a private and expensive girls’ dorm I was working at, which was located next to the dining hall. As I walked to a table with my tray of food, I heard loud screams, laughing, and clapping by the girls at the announcement of his death. Nixon would go on to be elected President, changing the political climate of the country for the next 25 years until Clinton was elected President in 1992.

I spent my last year in pharmacy school trying to figure out how I’d not be drafted. Because of my excellent grades in pharmacy, several of my professors advised me to get a PhD in pharmacology and toxicology. At the time, graduate students were able to get draft deferments if they were accepted into a reputable graduate school, especially at major universities across the country. On their advice I applied to several major universities, took the GRE, and applied for competitive, national graduate fellowships.

Early in my last semester before graduation, I learned that I had received a prestigious, nationally competitive fellowship from the National Science Foundation, which allowed me to use the fellowship funds to attend a university of my choosing. I soon realized that this award was something big because several of my professors were trying to persuade me to stay in Texas for my graduate work. I chose the University of Kansas on the recommendation of my favorite professor, Dr. Delgado, the only Mexican American on the faculty. In addition, I was given a draft deferment. I left Austin in June of 1968 for my trip to Lawrence, Kansas.

I thought my future was now secure and safe, but a month after I started graduate school in Kansas, LBJ rescinded all graduate deferments. I returned to my draft board in El Paso to appeal the loss of my deferment. But my appeal with the draft board did not go well. The entire board was unanimous with its vote to deny my appeal. But I was able to convince the board members to give me an extra three months before I had to report to the army; they agreed I had lost some money when I thought I had a deferment and went to Kansas. Those three months were important because I was able to work as a pharmacist and save money for my return to civilian life two years later. The only Mexican on the board shook my hand. 

For the next three months I worked as a pharmacist at Gunning Casteel, the same one I had worked at as a summer student employee. My plan was to save as much money as possible so when I returned to Kansas, I'd have a good sum of money for my new life as a graduate student. I worked a solid three months, putting most of my salary in the bank. Before I reported to the US Army, I let my younger sister, Celia, use my Mustang. I hoped that my first assignment was in the states and not be sent to Vietnam. 

In early October of 1968 I was inducted into the US Army at Fort Bliss, Texas. 

Basic Training

The platoon that I was assigned to consisted mostly of draftees who were under 21, but there were a few diehard volunteers who believed in the Vietnam war. The makeup of the platoon had only three college graduates (a white guy from California, a Black guy from the South, and me from Texas); the rest were high school graduates, primarily white and a few Hispanics.

“Dan, aren’t you too old to be in the army,” several of the high school graduates teasingly asked me.

I made friends with several of the Hispanics, mostly Mexican Americans but also a couple of Puerto Ricans from the New York area. I was constantly teased about my age.

During the first week of training, there was an announcement by the company commander that the Army was interested in getting more recruits for officer training. I surprised him by asking for more information about this program.

I overheard his lieutenant (who was a Texas A&M graduate) whisper to him:

 "Who does he think he is, a Harvard graduate?"

He did not know that I was a UT graduate; the Aggies and Longhorns are bitter rivals in academics and sports. I kept my mouth shut.

The captain smiled and told the drill sergeant to escort me to personnel to fill out the application. He was mad that he had to drive me to the other side of the base to complete the application.

As I got into his car, I began to compliment him:

“Drill Sergeant, this is a great-looking car.”

He had a very sporty '66 Mustang with a special paint job and an upgraded interior. It was nothing like my base model '67 Mustang. I started to tell him about my car.

“Trainee, shut your mouth and don’t speak unless I ask you to talk,” he angrily yelled at me.

I filled out the application and quickly forgot about it.

*

There were three or four drill sergeants that I encountered throughout my training; one was a Hispanic who I thought was a Mexican American. He did not play favorites and treated all of us the same. The troops saw that he and a white drill sergeant often disagreed on the format of some of the training exercises. In the third week of training, there was a vocal outburst between the two of them, and they agreed to settle their differences mano a mano on the weekend. The next week the white sergeant had been assigned to another company. That is all we knew about the incident. 

The rest of the eight weeks went by quickly. I became friendly with the other two college graduates, and we helped each other out with some of our assignments. Most of my platoon had to undergo a 16-week advanced warfare training program before they were assigned to Vietnam. Because of my college degree in pharmacy, I did not need any advanced training and was given several weeks of Christmas leave in El Paso.

Unfortunately, the Californian got injured during one of the field tests, running through an obstacle course and completing a mile run under a specified time. He was sent to the hospital for a week, and thus did not graduate with the rest of the platoon.

Perhaps, this got him out of Vietnam. Because of my pharmacy degree I was assuredly informed that I’d remain in the states with a safe assignment. I’d be told where before I completed my Christmas leave in late December.

I was still waiting for news about the status of my application for officer training. My older sister, Tina, who was working at Ft. Bliss as a civilian administrator at the base EEO office, recommended that I contact the Inspector General at Ft. Bliss and make an official complaint.

I gave him all of the information I had and explained how I tried unsuccessfully to get more information from the First Sergeant at my basic training unit. The sergeant, who was very courteous and a model of professionalism, had his desk near the company commander's office.

Apparently, the commander had been informed of my visit with the sergeant; the captain, his lieutenant and drill sergeant were whispering in his office when I arrived in my civilian clothes. They angrily stared at me and said nothing to me. They knew that I had filed an official complaint.

“Private Acosta, please come in; I have some information to give you,” as the IG waved me into his office.

He apologized that his investigation had to take a month or two to complete and that I had to report to Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah as a PFC pharmacist at the base hospital, which served to train helicopter pilots and to treat returning pilots who had been wounded in the Vietnam war. Some did not survive. 

I retrieved my Mustang from Celia and drove to Georgia to begin my first year in the army. A month later at Hunter Army Airfield I received a very official-looking letter from the Department of Army in Washington, D.C.

The letter explained that my application had been misplaced in a bottom desk drawer of the file clerk, most likely a PFC like me, at training headquarters. I could read between the lines that the file clerk had been told to hide the file because I was informed that the junior and senior officers involved in the misplacement of my application were all given an official reprimand.

Such a blot on their military records if they chose to make the army a career might have a negative impact on future promotions. That was not my intention; I just wanted to see what happened to my application.

I turned down the army’s offer to consider applying again for officer training.

My first year in the Army in Georgia went by quickly, and by the end of the year I learned my next assignment was South Korea. One of the pharmacists working with me at Hunter Army Airfield was given orders to go to Vietnam, supposedly thinking that a pharmacist could be trained quickly to be a medic. I was lucky that I was not sent to Vietnam.

Finishing Up In South Korea

My orders were to report to the medical clinic at the Inchon army base outside of Seoul. Inchon served as the historic landing for General Douglas MacArthur's American troops that played such an important role in ending the war between North and South Korea. 

My trip to Inchon included layovers in Tacoma and Tokyo. The base at Tacoma was a major site of departure for troops assigned to 'Nam. The war was heating up in early 1969, and many of these young soldiers knew that some of them may never return home. What angered me was that many of them were Black, Hispanic, and lower income whites, who already have had a rough time in life. During that short time that we were in Tacoma they were treated badly by the NCOs stationed at the base. Soldiers were not allowed to take a break and rest in the barracks before their plane ride to Asia. They were given work details that were dirty and tiring, such as kitchen details in the mess hall and outside work cleaning up weeds and trash around the base. 

I quickly told the sergeant in charge of the barracks that I was a college-educated pharmacist and that I was very willing to help out at the medical clinic's pharmacy. I got out of those dirty work details and met some of the soldiers who were trained as pharmacy technicians. They had sixteen weeks of advanced training after their basic training; many of them were quite good at their jobs. But they were not so happy for those two days that I was there because they were already overstaffed and did not want their superiors to know that. I was told to keep quiet and stay out of the way. That was OK for me. There were times I had to pretend to be busy when there was a warning that an officer was nearby. This is how the army works; it is the lowly-ranked soldiers who really do the work to keep the army running smoothly and effectively. 

My first night in the Inchon barracks I was assigned a bed which was probably the worst one in the small room of about twelve beds; mine was close to the front door and when it was opened a blast of cold air came towards my bed. That first winter in Korea was one of my coldest; El Paso had some cold winters but nothing like what I experienced in Inchon. There were two large heaters in the room, one at the front and one at the back, to keep us reasonably warm during the night. I was introduced to the barracks' boy (he was really a grown Korean man with a family in a small village outside Inchon), who took care of all our laundry needs, ironed our pants and shirts, shined our shoes and boots, and ran small errands for us.

I remember paying him about $10 a month and I guessed he made a total of $125 to $150 a month taking care of the guys in our barracks. He arrived every morning around 6 AM, quietly woke us up, and started his daily cleaning routine. He had a small corner in the front of the room where he kept an iron and ironing board, cleaning supplies, hangers, and other items he needed to do his job.

The medical clinic that I was assigned to had one physician, two pharmacists, an X-ray technician, a couple of male army nurses, and a file clerk. If there were major emergencies, the patients were sent to the larger hospital in Seoul. I was set to meet my commanding officer the next morning. He quickly told me that he ran a tight clinic, and he wanted his men to do their jobs efficiently and be one happy family. He had been drafted like the many of us and had one more year to serve before he returned to his family and medical practice in Wisconsin. I liked him immediately.

Most of the days were the same for me. Some of the GIs came down with gonorrhea and were given an injection of an antibiotic in their buttocks. About once a month, girls from the brothels were brought into the clinic for their monthly injections. On those days the waiting room was full and several of them had to wait outside for their turn to come in. Our commanding officer made all his team treat the women professionally and respectfully. On his own, he started a monthly clinic for small children in the village to have free physical exams and receive necessary treatment for common ailments. I now had a much better impression of the army and what good it can bring to people living outside of the U.S.

After my first bitter winter in South Korea, I was reassigned to another base in Taegu at the southern tip of South Korea. It was much larger, and a fair number of family dependents lived on the base. There was an officer's club and one for NCOs. The medical facilities and amenities were bigger and much nicer than the ones at Inchon. There was a fancy restaurant, some small cafes and snack shops, a nine-hole golf course, and a large PX (a large retail or department store for military personnel and their dependents). 

Because of the many dependents on the base, along with several higher-ranking officers, the medical clinic had four or five physicians and dentists on the dependents' side of the base. On the other side of the base, the medical facilities for the GIs were smaller and manned with fewer medical personnel. I split my time between both sides of the base; there were about four pharmacists who helped at the pharmacies at both medical facilities. With time, as the other more senior pharmacists completed their tours of duty, I became the senior pharmacy specialist at the two pharmacies. 

That meant I had to spend more of my time at the base headquarters on the GI side of the base.  The commanding officer was a major, rather than a captain like the one at Inchon. He was a cardiologist and seemed to be frustrated with his assignment because he mainly treated the higher ranked officers and their dependents at the base and always seemed to have a sour expression on his face. The pharmacy was down the hall from his office, and he often conferred with me on the ordering of drugs he needed for his practice. The first sergeant was his executive assistant and had his desk just outside the major's office which also served as a private medical room for his important patients. The sergeant was an alcoholic and was often seen leaving the NCO club most evenings at closing time. 

The army is obsessed with inspections. It was a major deal for the major when our medical facilities were to have their annual inspection led by a one-star general who was once a practicing physician. For the next two weeks, the first sergeant with his blood-shot eyes had his morning lineup talk with the NCO medical personnel, warning us we better not disappoint the

major. At the time, the playing of Rolling Stones hits was quite popular at the NCO club. To show his camaraderie with the troops, he often quoted some of the Stones' lyrics. Not making much sense, he said if we did well on the inspection, he'd stay "off our cloud" in the future. The Stones' song was about "two's a crowd on my cloud and baby, get off of my cloud". He meant well.

It so happened that the inspecting general had a daughter attending the University of Texas, and once he learned I had a pharmacy degree from Texas our conversations quickly turned to Texas football and the great state of Texas. He briefly told me that he liked the way I arranged the drugs in categories on the shelves--sedatives; analgesics; antibiotics; heart medications; etc. and etc. As he left the pharmacy he said with a grin, “Good job, soldier!”

When the results of the inspection came in, we learned that the pharmacy had received the highest scores among the different clinical departments, much to the surprise of the major and his staff of nurses and physicians. I had always gotten along with the medical personnel, but this latest news gave me more status. The younger physicians at the clinic were closer to my age than the major, and they asked if I played golf because they were beginning to learn the game themselves. We practiced at the driving range for a few weeks after buying our sets of clubs at the PX. We then spent our late afternoons and weekends playing many rounds of golf. This was not exactly like the M*A*S*H movie with Hawkeye and Trapper John, but we had fun walking around the small golf course that was quite challenging even for good golfers.

This was my first introduction to a sport mainly played by the more affluent people around the world. We once played a round of golf with a Korean general who was visiting the base at the invitation of the American base commander. We had a great time, maybe because the American general was not there for that round of golf. Golf is a great equalizer; if one's foursome has reserved a tee time it cannot be taken over by another group who think that they are more important. However, if there are only three in your group at tee-off time, a single player may ask politely to join your group as the fourth player. That was what happened with the Korean general. He did not try to pull rank just because he was a general; our threesome allowed him to join us as a courtesy to a fellow golfer. We had a great round of golf.

During my last three months in Taegu, I had a personal encounter with U.S. Army discipline. It was late one hot afternoon and the clinic on the dependents' side of the base was empty with no patients. The doctors who I played golf with, including the fun-loving dentist, decided to leave the clinic thirty minutes earlier than the posted closing hours, and told me to meet them later on the course. They allowed the other specialists to take off earlier but said that two of us had to remain in the clinic until closing. I was chosen with another guy. We sat around doing nothing; we decided to lock the doors ten minutes to 5PM. What the hell, we thought, no one would show up at the clinic on this lazy, hazy hot summer day (like the Nat King Cole song).

We were wrong; we found out the next day that a soldier had tried to seek help at the clinic because of heat stroke. The way the army works is this: no officer will be reprimanded; some lowly specialist has to take the blame for closing the clinic early. I had been promoted two weeks earlier to specialist four than the other guy. Thus, as the higher-ranking NCO of the two I had to take the fall for dereliction of duty, and an official reprimand was to be placed in my personnel file.

I did not think much of this negative item in my file until some of the guys told me it might affect my promotion to specialist five. We all waited for our promotions, and surprisingly I got a promotion too. I thought it was because of the superior inspection rating I received for the pharmacy. 

A few weeks before I got my discharge papers and was preparing for my last days in the army, the specialist who worked as the file clerk to the First Sergeant told me that he had typed up my reprimand that had to be sent to the main headquarters in Seoul. But he conveniently forgot to mail my file to headquarters; my record remained unblemished. The really important people in the army are the lower-ranked NCOs, somewhat similar to the Radar character in the movie M*A*S*H. 

I was ready to restart my graduate education at the University of Kansas.

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Dan Acosta is a first-generation Mexican American, whose mother and grandparents emigrated from Mexico. He is a former professor, research scientist, and administrator, who retired in 2019 at age 74.  He writes about his experiences as a Mexican boy trying to succeed in white America.

His stories have appeared in The Acentos Review, Sky Island Journal, Somos en Escrito, The Rush, Toasted Cheese, Latin@Literatures, Midway Journal, The Manifest Station, Literary Yard, and Rise Up Review.

ART BY - M P Pratheesh