The End of Innocence

It was a golden warm September afternoon at the University of New Hampshire in 1964 when we trooped over to the ROTC supply building to be issued our uniforms.

The floors creaked, and the interior was divided into bins screened off with heavy wire.

We lined up at the metal counter behind which stood a grizzled, retired sergeant from World War II, now an army civilian employee. The whole place smelled strongly of wool, canvas and leather.

We drew a garrison cap, a dress jacket, which the old NCO called a “blouse,” upon the lapels of which were round brass pins with the flaming torch insignia of the Reserve Officer Training Corps; pins which we would be required to polish. We were given a pair of woolen trousers, (“Only girls wear pants,” the sergeant had told us) a black tie, socks, a brown shirt, a belt with a brass buckle, also requiring polish, and a pair of black army shoes, which we would also learn to spit shine. For many of us, these shoes also became our dress shoes.

We bore the uniforms back to our rooms openly and proudly so that the girls could see them as a mark of our manhood.

Our fathers had worn such uniforms and now it was our turn. We, too, would go to Europe and fight a war to preserve freedom and democracy.

Little did we know that in a brief time, these same uniforms we proudly slung over our shoulders, would be symbols of scorn and contempt, and the war we thought we would fight would be in the steaming jungles of a place most of us had never even heard of.