Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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A Son of Privilege

Rich Galen

Friday September 17, 2004

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From Boston, Massachusetts
Dept. of Military Science,
Boston University

Dear Mr. Mullings:
We couldn't help but notice in your previous Mullings that you mentioned you were in the National Guard during the Vietnam Era. We were interested in knowing what strings your family pulled on your behalf to get you out of the draft.
Signed,
The Dan Rather Fan Club and Legal Defense Fund
Terry McAuliffe, Chairman

Ok. I'm outed. I'll come clean on the story of my getting into the New Jersey National Guard.

My father was very, very well-connected - on a particular block in Queens, New York where he owned a slip cover, upholstery and furniture shop. You wanted slip covers and matching drapes? Fresh Pond Decorators was your place, and my dad was your guy.

You want to know about major pull? When he walked into the coffee shop on the other side of Linden Street the woman behind the counter - without him having to say even one single word - would hand him a "coffee regular."

We not only didn't have family pull; my family didn't know any families who knew any families who had pull.

The dirty little secret to my National Guard service is this: I had the good sense to have been thrown out of Marietta College (Marietta, Ohio 45750) after the first semester of my sophomore year when the draft was in full swing.

In the autumn of every year, colleges and universities sent an official letter to local draft boards throughout the country informing them whom, among the young men in their jurisdiction, was dutifully enrolled as a full-time student, thus preserving his precious 2-S (student) deferment.

If you didn't have a deferment of some kind, you got a little something in the mail inviting you to show up at a federal building for what was known as your "pre-induction physical."

At that event, if you could remain more-or-less upright during the physical, you were adjudged fit for military service and the next letter you could expect from your government would be to tell you where and when to report to be sworn into whichever service your government thought you would best � fit.

As I had flunked out of college after the first semester and, as college registrars only reported to the Selective Service System in the Fall, I had about eight months to figure out what to do.

The first thing I did was put my name on the waiting list for the National Guard unit near my home in New Jersey. Then I decided to join the Air Force.

I took all the tests and qualified for interpreter in either Russian or Chinese, a two-year course taught, on the East Coast, at Syracuse University. Naturally you got time added onto your enlistment in return for the training, but I was barely 20-years-old and I was thinking � spy: Galen. RICH Galen.
"Hah! Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?"
"No, Mr. Galen. I don't expect you to talk. I expect you to die."

Shortly before I was to take the oath to enlist in the Air Force I got a call from the Guard unit that my name had arrived at the top of the list and if I were still interested �

Zip. Zap. Zup. I was standing in front of the unit First Sergeant taking the oath from him. Shortly after that I was off to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina for basic training, thence to Ft. Lee, Virginia where I learned how to type on a manual typewriter.

As I have mentioned many times over the past year, I was a much better soldier during my six months in Iraq as a fifty-something civilian than I ever was when I was an actual soldier in my 20's.

And a much better typist.

To my many Jewish friends, best wishes for a happy, healthy and safe New Year.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to a two-year-old Dan Rather story which will make you even more suspicious. A Mullfoto from my Boston U speech, and the usual things.

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