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Brooklyn
Memoir (23)
Bert,
who treated us to Italian pasta at his apartment in Brooklyn Heights, told
me of his painful past.He graduated from a high school in Brooklyn and then studied at several colleges, and finally entered a medical school in Chicago. Therefore, Bert was at least 5 years older than me, even though I was one year ahead of him as a Resident. He was a college student in early 70s when the Vietnam war became messy. The American government had a kind of lottery to get young American citizens into the military.
The government sent a "call-up" to those whose numbers were called. There was one year probation period after receiving the call-up papers, though. A lot of patriotic and serious students all over the U.S. accepted the government order, and were eventually killed in the jungles in Vietnam.
" Even though Brooklyn youths had concentrated training for several
months in the Army, they are just like babies in Vietnamese jungles,"
said Bert sadly. Although Bert's number didn't hit the Russian Roulette
type of government’s lottery luckily, some names of classmates of his
from high school in Brooklyn have their names on the war's stone monument
in Washington DC.
Dr. Kido's office
E-mail:kidot@momo.so-net.ne.jp
E-mail:kidot@momo.so-net.ne.jp