the draftboard diary

The draft-dodging diary I couldn’t let myself get inducted because I could be facing my cousin Fong across a rice paddy. Whoever kills the other is a tragedy. I also had some Vietnamese friends in the U district. Believe me, I feel more comfortable sharing a latrine with any Asian than a white dude. They don’t think their shit stinks. So dropping out of school caused this problem. At the Army induction center, the sergeant exhorted, “You men, I don’t mean those of you who are boys, if you step across this line, I will welcome you into the Army!” You know, for a split second of macho, you could find infinity in the jungle. No thanks. I went back to the Aberdeen draft board, which in its history never gave a C.O. I screamed at them and told them not to fuck with me. I am the oldest son in my family and Chinese filial piety forbids joining a death-meting group, especially the Americans because I am the legitimate family line. And I can’t die without siring a son or adopting a godson. They knew I was angry and unhinged it seemed. And my good friend told me to see a psychiatrist and have him write a letter of disqualification. The letter I obtained later said I was passive-aggressive (moderate) and schizoid in personality. The good doctor said it didn’t apply to me, but the Army likes to hear things like that. The draft board gave me IV-F, meaning administratively unfit. I didn’t know if my father greased the wheels for me with cash. My dad was a businessman and his wallet burgeoned with $50 bills. Even though I am problematic, the CIA tried to recruit me when I went back to school in Oregon. They said I would ostensibly be working for the State Department, and they didn’t care if I espoused a Marxist line, as long as I was convincing. I said no thanks and forgot all about the incident until twenty years later. I was having lunch with a lawyer friend, a prosecutor, and he joked, “When you are twenty and you are not a socialist, there is something wrong with your heart. But when you are forty and still a socialist, there is something wrong with your brain!” Suddenly the CIA incident flashed across my mind. Now I am not a socialist, I am the most self-serving poet there is. I’d sell my ass to get published in Poetry (Chicago).