Poltrack Blog

Fifty years ago in July  I arrived at U.S. Naval Training Center in Great Lakes. ILL. The bus pulled up to gates in the middle of night and I remember being herded off and yelled at. It wasn't exactly the same as an orientation week at College. The training ran just under two months and there was a lot to do. The idea was to rework us into sailors and for the most part they were successful. They took away anything we might have brought with us with the exception of bibles and the clothes were wore. We couldn't wash those clothes  and after a while in the summer heat they became quite pungent. This was by design of course and I appreciated getting my brand new uniform. We had the option of shipping our clothing home but most of us just tossed it. There was lots of standing in line and the common chant was "nuts to butts" if you can picture that in your mind. There was some innovation as we were in line in our skivvies. We were ordered to raise our arms and they wou...

In late Spring of 1968 I received a letter to take a physical for military service. It was scheduled in New Haven, CT and was unlike a regular physical performed by a personal physician. The experience was surreal and is pretty much as described in Arlo Guthrie's classic song Alice's Restaurant. There was a lot of sitting around on benches with lots of other guys waiting to get inspected, injected and prodded. We weren't in the service but I remember being yelled at by people who were. According to the official Selective Service Website  we were being examined for mental, physical and moral fitness by the military. Some of the people on the bench had prepared for their physical by ingesting large quantities of drugs but in 1968 they were mostly interested in making the numbers so everyone was deemed moral enough for war as long as they had a pulse. The part that stuck in my mind was when we lined up and some army guy (with a bad facial wound) had us count off  and b...

January 30, 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive , one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War.  New Ipswich resident and former Selectman Woody Meiszner  has been sharing his Vietnam experiences on Facebook in a series of postings.  It is my belief that these postings deserve a larger audience especially in a time when the national security advisor refers to armed conflict as giving the enemy a bloody nose . War should be the last resort after exhausting everything else. Woody Meiszner at the New Ipswich Memorial Day celebration May 17, 2015

50 Years Ago In late January 1968 during the lunar new year ("Tet") the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against South Vietnamese and U.S. Troops. After this the call for young men picked up dramatically. Like many other young men, I was required to register for the draft when I turned 18. During the 1960s I watched as the Vietnam War developed. First "advisors" then troops. I remember going to a Teach-in  at the University of Connecticut which featured Senator J. William Fulbright  making  a case against our involvement in Vietnam. However in spite of protests and demonstrations the number of draftees increased. I was opposed to the war but not the men being drafted. In 1968 I graduated from the Norwalk State Technical College  with an Associate Degree in Electronics. This left me without an educational deferment just as the draft call increased dramatically. In July I reported for a physical and was classified 1-A. Right af...

Welcome home to my fellow Vietnam Vets

The Kaman "Seasprite" UH-2 was used for Search and Rescue (SAR) aboard the USS BonHomme Richard (CVA-31). I was an avionics technician assigned to HC-1 Det 3 out of Ream Field, Imperial Beach, CA. We deployed for Vietnam in 1970.