My ROTC Experience (1963-1967)

In the spring of 1965, I faced one of the most important decisions of my young life. The Vietnam War was expanding, anti-war sentiment was growing on college campuses, and I had to decide whether to continue in Army ROTC and pursue a commission as an officer.  The military draft and being sent to Vietnam were clear and present facts of life.

In 1963 and 1964, as a freshman and sophomore at Indiana University, I participated in the compulsory Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program.  During those years I had never known a time when there was no military draft and college gave me a draft deferment.  I felt a sense of duty as I enrolled at IU, so no big deal.

I was issued an Army uniform and required to wear it once a week on ROTC drill days.  Our drill instructors were Army sergeants, most of whom had never been to college.  Many of us were liberal arts majors with no clue about military discipline, uniform inspections, or marching.  Each week there was a litany of yelling during inspections about unshaven, sloppily dressed, and downright degenerate young men.  We generally just agreed and sucked it up.  

I certainly didn't enjoy the activities, which to my way of thinking were a mindless waste of time. Yet, we did little that could be described as physical. Mostly we marched in straight lines of three or four individuals, while someone shouted nearly indecipherable commands. Sometimes I was even asked to command these little squads, which I did by trying to imitate the nearly indecipherable sounds of our older sergeant. I was not good at imitation-evidently as I remember marching a group of us into a sand pit and not knowing how to stop or turn the group around.  Sergeant yelling and an eye roll followed.

One day we were handed M1 rifles and asked to take them apart. I was terrified, but I was able somehow to dismantle the thing; but when asked to put it back together again, was completely stymied. After a seemingly interminable time, during which everyone else had managed to transform the pieces back into rifles, I had no choice but to hand in the parts. Nothing was said.

At the end of my sophomore year, I faced a choice of continuing ROTC for 2 years and becoming a commissioned officer or dropping out of ROTC.  It was the spring of 1965 and the Vietnam War was ramping up, along with campus anti-war sentiment.  I was having long late-night conversations with my classmates about what to do about advanced ROTC, the draft, and draft deferments.  Advanced ROTC meant joining the military and possibly being sent to Vietnam.  It was a defining moment in my life.   

I reasoned that if for some inexplicable reason, I was drafted out of the university or if the war were to continue to ramp up as it did after my graduation year, I would be better off as an officer.  But the bell rang and light went on for me one evening when a fraternity brother emphasized that advanced ROTC would pay me $40 a month.  I needed the money so the next day I signed up.  Talk about naive, and impulsive!  I hadn’t consulted my parents or any other person with perspective or wisdom.  I was in the Army now. Reflecting back now, I feel much of the decision was also following a path of duty like it was a game with rules. Reality taught me it was a debt paid in blood.

The summer of my junior year I had a six-week summer camp as part of my military obligation at $40 a month.  This is the ROTC summer camp that all ROTC cadets are required to complete.  Summer camp was at Ft. Riley, Kansas, and was my first real taste of the military.  Ft. Riley was hot.  Hot like an average temperature of over 100 degrees for the entire week three of training to the point where the Army cadre stopped training one day because of heat exhaustion by many cadets.  

The physical training was the most strenuous and exhausting I’ve ever experienced.  Up at 3:30 a.m. to make our beds, use the latrine, shave, and get dressed for inspection.  All this as we attempted to get ready for another training day by 4 a.m.  Training began with calisthenics and a 5-mile run.  No break and then lining up for breakfast soaked with sweat and doing or being severely demeaned for not doing 10 pull-ups before entry to the mess hall.  Then a server slapped a scoop of SOS (a dish consisting of a cream sauce with meat in it poured over toast) on my tray.  My sweat would drip all over it as I tried to eat it in 10 minutes.  After breakfast, we were marched to a class on military tactics, weapons, field fortifications or some other subject long forgotten where a number of us would doze off only to be rudely awakened by our Sargeant.  We would march swiftly everywhere and keep going all day, with breaks only for lunch and dinner.  

Night exercises would normally follow for compass reading (and I always got lost) or maybe a night assault.  I remember one cadet designated company commanding officer lined us up for a night attack and at the time of attack yelled charge like in the movies.   The training was stopped and the Army cadre told us we were all dead because we lost our surprise and the enemy would be ready for us.  The lyrics from the Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth” came to mind- There is a man with a gun over there telling me I got to beware.  There was a sense of apprehension and fear in the air from that point on.

I remember peer pressure pushing me beyond preconceived physical limits; being really thirsty, unlike any other thirst in my life before or since; digging a foxhole in the middle of some God-forsaken scorched-earth pasture.  I would occasionally see a dwelling on the post and repeatedly dream of its air conditioning and a cold drink.  One time coming back to the barracks after a long training day, I sat down in the canteen to drink a glass of cold soda.  It was warm and a guy next to me said the beer was cold.  I then opted to take my first ever glass of beer, cold beer, and to this day I prefer a cold beer to any other drink.  

 

Ft. Riley Cadet Barracks Activities From ROTC Summer Camp Book, 1966

After our fourth week of training, we were given a pass to leave the fort from noon on Saturday until noon on Sunday.  Four of us rented a hotel room, turned the air conditioner way up and mostly they drank a case of beer while I slept.  We didn’t leave the room except to eat.

While I may not have been a changed person when I returned to school for my senior year, the summer camp had a profound effect on me.  I realized for the first time that it was serious business.  The instruction was geared to enable us to kill others so I and those I was responsible for could live to fight and kill another day.  Coming to grips with mortality as a young man can be sobering, especially if there is a war going on and the chances are good you’re going to participate in it, which I did.

Ft. Riley Cadet Portrait From ROTC Summer Camp Book Book, 1966

I returned from ROTC summer camp to Indiana University in the fall of 1966 for my senior year and graduation.

Mom and Me, Indiana University Graduation, 1967

After four years of ROTC classes at IU and an ROTC summer camp at Ft. Riley Kansas, I was presented my Commision as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army.  It was a rite of passage.  While I felt a strong sense of pride and exhilaration for meeting all the physical and academic demands, this was balanced with a deep solemnity and a heavy burden of responsibility.    

Commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U. S. Army, June 12, 1967

Looking back, I have no regrets. ROTC exposed me to discipline, responsibility, leadership, and the realities of military service. More importantly, it prepared me mentally for what lay ahead.  Although I could not know it at the time, the lessons learned at Fort Riley would soon be tested in Vietnam.

                    

My Vietnam War Experience 1968

On March 29, 2023, I watched live on YouTube the National Vietnam War Veterans Day Welcome Home Ceremony which triggered some memories of my Vietnam service.  The keynote speaker was Capt. J. Charles Plumb, a navy pilot shot down and held prisoner in Vietnam for six years.  Fifty years ago final American military forces left Vietnam and our remaining POWs were returned, including Capt. Plumb. Listening to his address I felt very sad for the suffering he and his family endured and I looked over the audience of Vietnam veterans and their wives and children and had a similar feeling.  But I am also proud to have served and feel proud of all veterans who served in Vietnam.  Capt. Plumb encouraged us to tell our Vietnam stories and here is mine.  

I volunteered for Vietnam in March 1968.  I was a 2Lt. in the Army Quartermaster Corps (supply) and had recently graduated from officer basic and advanced supply officer courses at Ft. Lee, Virginia.  I was stationed at Ft. Lewis, WA at the time.  A lot of things had gone wrong with the Army supply system in the Vietnam War by the end of 1967 and I felt I could be part of the solution.  But contrary to my initial thoughts, my experience in Vietnam was a lot of chaos.  Not only did I lack control over events there but no one seemed in control.

The Army tried to establish a major logistical base in a country with no terrain under real American control over enemy observation and hostile fire.  There were no adequate port facilities or logistics or supply personnel.  There was no real meaningful experience data to use to estimate troop supply needs.  To get items in-country needed by rapidly expanding forces in 1965-67, Push Packages were used.  These were supplies to meet an anticipated 90-day need for units of about 5,000 and were based on WWII and Korea experiences, which did not work in Vietnam.  The packages did not meet demand, causing many item overages and shortages.  The packages piled up in Saigon supply depots.  I volunteered for an Army group called Project Clean to organize the packages.  But many remained in the original conex metal shipping containers still unidentified and unusable when I left.

My arrival in Vietnam was a reality check that I was in a war zone.  The transport plane I was on landed at the Ben Hoa airport north of Saigon which had been under a Viet Cong mortar attack the night before.  Military buses met the plane as we landed and armed soldiers yelled to get on the buses ASAP, stay below the windows, as we were sitting targets.  I kneeled next to my bus seat and felt vulnerable to the unseen enemy.  From that point on I experienced constant fear and anxiety, wondering whether I would measure up and whether I would be killed or wounded at any moment.  

I was taken to the Bachelor Officers Quarters located in Saigon near the Chinese District named Cholon. From there I began work on Project Clean at the 506th Field Depot on the Saigon River. I remember the day May 5. I was on guard duty all night on the roof of the BOQ when Viet Cong units attacked multiple locations visible from the roof. I locked and loaded my M-14 rifle. I started breathing rapidly, my muscles were tense and I had tunnel vision straining to see every movement and hear every nearby sound. After a few hours I began imagining hearing

nearby VC climbing sounds with the backdrop of the attacks going on. Finally morning came with a breath of relief, and I went to my room and shaved to get ready for duty at the depot.

As soon as I got to the depot about 7 am, the company commander, a captain, called me into the headquarters office and told me that his 1Lt. in charge of 8 warehouse operations, who I worked with and knew, had been seriously wounded by the VC in Cholon about midnight, while I was on the BOQ roof. He had taken a jeep into Cholon to rescue his girlfriend but the VC spotted them killing his girlfriend and wounding him. The captain told me I was immediately off Project Clean, and now the new replacement and executive officer of the company. He told me to write up the seriously wounded 1Lt for a bronze star  and make it sound good because we didn’t want his parents to know what really happened. I asked around and found some bronze star medal wording scenarios that I used to type up the valor wording.  I felt he deserved the medal.  He showed up, he put his life on the line for his country in Vietnam, and, if he survived, he had a life of disability before him.   I submitted the recommendation to the captain.  

At about this same time, I was moved into the officer barracks at the 506 Field Depot (also known as Camp Davies) and began learning about and commanding military operations of the 8 warehouses, which had about 40 enlisted men and 6 or 7 non-commissioned officers.  There were also at least 8 or 10 local Vietnamese in each warehouse to help with orders.  A few of them had worked in the same warehouses before WWII for the French, for the Japanese in WWII, for the South Vietnamese after the French left, and then for the Americans.

Butler Area, 506th Field Depot, Camp Davies, Vietnam, Where I Served As Officer In Charge. 1968

(Representative Historical Image)

A week later I submitted to the captain my first monthly warehouse inventory order filled report that my warehouses had filled 70% of orders received.  When I showed it to the captain he said 70% was unacceptable as the figure had always been above 90%.  I got the message and inflated the order-filled reports thereafter.  As with body counts, these inflated numbers became the metric or measurement of Vietnam’s military success. 

Army Mortuary, Saigon, Vietnam, 1969

(Representative Historical Image)

In late May I was on a Depot supply truck run to Ton Sun Nhut air base to deliver supplies to the Army Mortuary there and saw body bags being unloaded from a Chinook helicopter. I felt shock, went numb emotionally, and buried the memory until recently. 

Among the few tangible items I kept from Vietnam is this plaque presented by fellow officers at Camp Davies in 1968. Although I was a replacement officer on special duty and did not form many lifelong relationships there, this plaque reminds me of the camaraderie, professionalism, and shared experience of the men with whom I served.

Camp Davies Officers' Recognition of My Vietnam Service, 1968

At the conclusion of my Vietnam service I was awarded the Army Commendation Medal, These following excerpts from the accompanying Citation capture the essence of the award:

"For meritorious service ... as Officer in charge of Butler Area, Camp Davies...He was further assigned to a greater responsibility as Executive Officer, 569th Supply Company..."

This citation is meaningful to me because it represents seven months of service in Vietnam as a young Army officer. More than the award itself, it reminds me of the responsibility I carried, the soldiers I served with, and a period of my life that shaped my understanding of leadership and duty.

Vietnam Service Army Commendation Medal Awarded to Me, 1968

When I returned from Vietnam in November 1968, I received neither a hero’s welcome nor appreciation for my service and sacrifice, but instead got apathy, anger, and hate.  And so the war ended in 1975, or at least I thought so.  In January 2000 my urologist told me I had prostate cancer.  The cause or statistical relationship was a chemical defoliant that was sprayed in Vietnam called Agent Orange.  My cancer was ruled to be service-connected and I still get excellent care at the Veterans Administration.  I am still here today after a couple of near-death Vietnam experiences.  I feel a strong call to share my story.  

More than fifty years later, attitudes toward Vietnam veterans changed dramatically. In May 2025, the City of Cypress, CA recognized my military service as part of its Veteran Recognition Program, While the recognition was appreciated, what mattered most to me was seeing how the nation had come to better understand and honor those who served in Vietnam.

City of Cypress Veteran Recognition Plaque Presented to Me in May 2025

City of Cypress Veteran Recognition Presentation to Me by Mayor and City Council, May 2025

Was it worth it?  On balance, I say probably yes.  About 15 years ago I spoke with a Communist China civil war veteran and later top communist official in Northeast China, now living in the U.S.  In a candid moment, he told me in his view America won- only in a different way.  We stopped communism which didn’t advance in Indochina any further than it reached in 1975.  That result gives me some peace of mind about my Vietnam service and the painful return.  The legacy of the communist takeover of countries in Asia has been mass murder through man-made famine, starvation, and conventional mass execution.  I have talked to many survivors who had lost control of their lives, faced repressions of basic freedom of speech and religion, and loss of property rights.  We enabled other countries in the region to develop market economies and government systems that were basically functional and responsive to their people.  

I have only the highest respect for those who have volunteered to serve in the military and have placed their lives on the line to protect our country and freedom-seeking people around the world.

 

Vietnam War Homecoming 1969

Me In Saigon, Vietnam, 1968

I stood in line on a hot and muggy tarmac at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon, dressed in a clean-pressed Army khaki uniform, along with 100 or more other soldiers returning home on the plane.  I had somehow comforted myself during my tour by imagining a welcome home feeling of appreciation would be waiting for me when I got home.

As the plane took off there was spontaneous applause, cheering, and tears with the feeling of being off the ground.  I remember looking down at the ground, waiting until we got enough altitude to feel completely safe.  The flight attendants were our age, beautiful, extremely friendly, and made us feel very appreciated.  I remember landing at San Francisco Airport and the wild cheering among us in the plane and the feeling of making it home.  

Then I remember deplaning and I was totally unprepared for what happened next.  There were no hugs, no appreciation just indifference, humiliation, and hurt.  A young woman with a hate-filled face walked up to me and shoved a sheet of paper in my hand saying something about being disgusted with the immoral war and the killing of innocent men, women, children, and babies.  I went numb and felt bewilderment.  I have heard other returning Vietnam veterans who were at that airport or nearby Traverse Air Force Base say they were spit on and called baby killers.  They related going through a crowd of protesters, with protest signs, shouting obscenities, shaking their fists, giving the finger, and throwing food at their cars.  I can still feel the bewilderment and pain. No one spat on me- just my heart.  Words can’t describe that deep feeling.

After a short leave, I was assigned to Ft. Lewis, Washington for the remainder of my Army service time. I was involved in a big troop welcome-home event and feel it was a sham.  In the spring of 1969, President Nixon began the withdrawal from Vietnam policy calling it “Peace with Honor.”  A welcome home “Peace with Honor” parade was planned in Seattle. The entire event felt strangely artificial to me. The war was not over, there had been no military victory, and many of the soldiers being honored seemed more interested in going home than participating in a political message of "Peace With Honor." At the same time, the concern about violent anti-war disruptions reminded me that much of the country still viewed the war itself as illegitimate. Instead of feeling welcomed home, I felt caught in the middle of a national argument that had little to do with the young men who had actually fought the war. There was no honor in walking away and leaving South Vietnam to defend itself against the heavily armed North after we had promised to protect them.

I was told there was intelligence that the Weathermen radical group would try to disrupt the parade, maybe with weapons. The first 700 soldiers leaving Vietnam under the policy (many were draftees processing out of the Army) arrived at Fort Lewis in July.  My commanding officer told me to sign for and be responsible for their barracks but I refused.  I knew once they were ordered to march in the parade they would get drunk and tear up the barracks- which they did- because they had served inVietnam, saw the "Peace with Honor" parade as a sham, and were ready to go home, not honor some sort of artificial victory.  Riot-trained troops from Ft. Lewis had to replace them, dress in combat fatigues, and carry fixed bayonet rifles with live ammunition. 

I went on to law school in the fall of 1969 at a time when anti-war protests, rallies, and demonstrations were at a fever pitch.  I tried to hide that I was a Vietnam veteran. I felt that I had served honorably and done my duty but that society treated me with indifference and in some ways with distrust and anger.  I withdrew my thoughts and feelings about the war into a deep mental hole and some stayed there until I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 1985.  No statute to generals, no politically correct patriotic words- just a solemn testimonial and memorial to those who served and those who died.

In the late 1980's I watched the Vietnam War movie Hamburger Hill and in the closing credits appeared a poem written by Major Davis O'Donnell shortly before he was killed in Vietnam. No words I have found better capture my feelings about those who served and those who never returned-

“If you are able, save them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.  Be not ashamed to say you loved them though you may or may not have always.  Take what they have left you with their dying and keep it with your own.  And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.”

Homecoming Continued 1969

Me at Ft. Lewis, 1969

After my return from Vietnam and being assigned to Ft. Lewis Washington, I expected the remainder of my Army service to be routine. Instead, I unexpectedly found myself defending an 18-year-old soldier in a court-martial proceeding. The experience changed the course of my life.  

As a newly arrived lieutenant, I was assigned an extra duty as special court-martial defense counsel. This involved a military court proceeding which also included a judge, a prosecutor and three jury members- all of us were officers with no legal training.  Out of the blue, I had been pulled into the Army legal system.  This assignment sparked my interest in a legal career.

My first case was in early 1969 and was to defend an 18-year-old soldier accused of going absent without official leave or AWOL.   He had been drafted into the Army in June 1968, along with 50,000 others.  The demand for soldier replacements in the Vietnam War was skyrocketing and that included my defendant.  The draft medical qualifications were meager at the time.  What I was to learn shortly was that the Army system and bureaucracy had treated him with gross injustice.  

He told me he went AWOL when his company commander assigned him permanent daily barracks latrine duty because he refused to work or drill in the sun.  He claimed to have a severe allergy to the sun but his personnel file included no medical record of such an allergy.  He described an inherited condition of getting a severe and painful red rash and blisters on any skin exposed to the sun.  I believed him and felt the absurdity and injustice of drafting an 18-year-old with an allergy to the sun and sending him to Vietnam.  The prosecution, on the other hand, was seeking the 6-6-1 penalty (6 months forfeiture of pay, 6 months confinement, and rank reduction to enlisted level 1).

My sense of injustice and determination kept growing as various levels of the Army command structure showed indifference to my defendant’s sun allergy claim.  After much stonewalling by the Army, I finally obtained from an Army fort in Seattle his medical records that had been filed incorrectly and separately from his personnel file records.  The medical records documented that he had suffered severe and painful sun allergy blisters in his first week in Vietnam, was shipped to Japan for treatment, and then unbelievably reassigned to Ft. Lewis for general duty.

I learned of the military appellate court case books at Ft. Lewis and spent several days reading them and writing a legal defense argument.  At the trial I introduced the medical records into evidence, along with evidence of his mistreatment by everyone in the Army that dealt with him- he never should have been drafted.  The three-officer jury voted 3-0 for a 6-6-1 sentence.  I immediately argued vigorously that I would appeal the injustice through the Army legal and command system.  I was called aside by the senior officer and judge and told not to act but to wait until the next day.  

The next morning the senior officer called me into his office and told me the special court-martial convening colonel had been briefed on the case and agreed with me about the Army mistreatment of my defendant.  The colonel had talked to my defendant’s parents and said he was granting my defendant an immediate general discharge from the Army, with no penalties or record.  I felt relief, vindication, and renewed confidence that one determined and persistent individual could sometimes overcome a bureaucratic injustice. Because of this experience, I applied for law school and spent 35 years practicing law.

Entrance Gate Ft. Lewis, Washington, 1969

(Representative Historical Image)

Long Suppressed Memories (1969-1973)

These are some unspoken, suppressed, resentful memories and reflections on returning from Vietnam to a university community that felt indifferent, hostile, and unprepared to understand veterans like me.

I grew up in awe of WWII veterans and their sacrifices, learning the values of duty, honor, and country from them, my teachers, and from the culture of the time in Indiana.  I came to believe it was my duty to serve when my country called and did so, putting my life on the line.  I volunteered for ROTC in 1965, and in 1968 volunteered and was decorated for service in Vietnam.  My life from 1967 to 1969 in the Army was focused on order, discipline, consistency, and most of all respect for those serving in the Vietnam War.  I lost two years in time as my attention was on duty, not societal changes.  While I had a painful Vietnam homecoming at the San Francisco Airport and experienced a Vietnam victory parade confrontation later at Ft. Lewis, Washington, I still expected when I got home to Indiana my service would be acknowledged and appreciated.      

The Army discharged me on August 1, 1969, and I started classes at Indiana University Law School in Bloomington, Indiana ten days later.  What happened next was re-entry to a society that had changed a lot from the one I had left in 1967. 

The combination of race, gender, and Vietnam War confrontation in 1969 was a lethal cocktail that pulled American society apart at the seams.  I felt a sense of confusion, chaos, and anxiety that the values I knew growing up were fraying under enormous pressure.   Values like duty, honor, and country were under attack, particularly on the IU campus.   

I was confused about a university community that failed Vietnam veterans; a university community that unfairly and wrongly demeaned, scorned, and received me without acknowledgment making me feel, not pride, but hostility.  I envied WWII veterans whose war service was acknowledged with hero status, gratitude, and parades on their re-entry to society.  I fought in a war that had by 1969 become very unpopular.  The Vietnam War was now being fought without unity and support from a large segment of the home population, most predominantly the universities.  

My immediate reaction to campus life was that many student protestors made no distinction between the war and those who fought it, regarding me as a ready and willing killer or an ignorant dupe.  While generally the campus reaction to my war experience was indifference, some of the protestors were very angry about my Vietnam service and I felt their hostility so I kept my wartime experiences to myself.  No one asked what happened or what it was like.  I was alone, by myself, with no one to hear or share my experience with.  I had no inclination to seek out other veterans and the university offered no basic counseling or human support.  I just seemed to slip back unobtrusively into college life and those in my classes and on campus scarely felt my presence.  Trying to find my place in the world as a civilian I was before I left and changing back for me meant hiding I was a veteran.  I got no haircut for nine months and had trouble getting dates.  Girls seemed uncomfortable around me- kind of stay away, don’t contaminate me with whatever you’ve brought back from Vietnam.  I was learning to feel numb about my military experience and suspend my feelings in general.     

In the spring of 1970, the military “invaded” Cambodia, and campus Anti-Vietnam War protests immediately went white hot.  As a Vietnam veteran, my initial reaction to the invasion was yes, payback, we now get to win.  I knew some of the units involved in the incursion and the frustrations we all had allowing the North Vietnamese soldiers’ sanctuary to attack us at will from Cambodia with no fear of our chasing them over the border.

I remember at the time being in a criminal law class and the professor never showing up as he was assisting and counseling student protestors being arrested. No one was helping veterans- we were invisible.  I was angry at the professor because he assumed he spoke for me (never apologized for missing class, I felt he represented an institutional indifference or hostility toward me).  I was angry at the protesters who lumped Vietnam veterans together with the war with their general claims of widespread military atrocities. Most could not or chose not to understand what the war homecoming was like for me because they had not been to Vietnam and I resented them more because I viewed them as privileged and selfish.  I had volunteered for service and risked my life in Vietnam in 1968 and my Army unit troops had come from poor or working-class backgrounds and the protestors came from middle or upper class families.  These middle-class and above guys that could go to college had something called a 2-S deferment.  They didn’t have to get drafted and the guys that didn’t have that deferment got drafted.  No deferment meant the possibility of becoming part of a shooting war and the growing casualties from that war.  Furthermore, when the draft ended in 1972, I noticed that much of the passion for anti-war protest on campus seemed to disappear. At the time, I interpretated that as evidence that many student protestors were more concerned about protecting themselves from the draft than about the broader issues surrounding the war.  I buried my feelings about Vietnam and my service there as well as the hurt from a hostile university community for the next 50 years.     

About this time in 1970, the law school and business school announced a joint four-year law/MBA degree program to begin in the fall of 1970.  With Vietnam-related experiences now buried, I threw myself wholeheartedly into a career.  I was one of 5 law students accepted in the program and 2 of us completed it.  I received my joint MBA/law degree in June 1973 and accepted a position in the Monsanto Company law department but never got my resentment feelings toward the university community out until now.  

Looking back, I now realize that much of my anger was rooted not in disagreement with the protestors themselves, but in the feeling that my service, sacrifice, and experiences had become invisible to the community to which I had returned.  I also felt that a stigma had become attached to Vietnam veterans because of morality questions surrounding the war itself.  Writing these thoughts now, more than fifty years later,  feels like a form of closure. 

My Career Path (1973-2002)

The court-martial experience at Fort Lewis had convinced me that I wanted to become a lawyer.  The next challenge was figuring out what kind of lawyer I wanted to be.

It was November of my last year in a joint 4-year JD/MBA degree program at Indiana University and a comment from a business professor woke me up.  He said it amazed him that students didn’t ignore classes their last semester and job hunt full time instead, as employers would never see that semester’s grades.  That resonated with me so I then committed myself emotionally and professionally to a full-time job search for the spring semester.  I met with a business school marketing professor for help drafting a resume for a law or business job and paid to have the resume printed professionally on high-quality paper. 

My degrees allowed me to network in both the law and business schools’ placement offices, searching out actual and potential business and law jobs in and outside Indiana.  I had worked with the IU business school executive education program as Assistant Director of the Indiana Executive Program for 3 years with an assistantship and had a preference for working with a company versus a law firm.  I liked being around businessmen because they were highly practical, focusing on strategy, negotiation and solving real word problems and disliked law school because it focused on studying hypothetical scenarios and working for grades. But I felt the best fit for me would be a corporation law department where I could use both my law and MBA training for problem-solving without having to constantly seek clients and do the billable-hour grind of actual firm work.  Each day beginning in December I stopped going to many classes and worked diligently making mailing lists, mailing out resumes, tracking responses, and making calls.

By March I had made three interview road trips and had 2 offers but not jobs I wanted.  In April I got the offer I had been hoping for- a Fortune 500 company named Monsanto Company in a big city St. Louis.  Monsanto was, to use a baseball analogy, in the big leagues in terms of law practice and I was apprehensive as I had little to no practical day-to-day law work experience. Kind of like just finishing high school baseball and being given a starting pitching game against the big league Chicago Cubs. But I had survived a tour in Vietnam and was in the first group to receive a joint degree so I just decided to go for it. I was excited.  It was a dream come true after the misery of a Vietnam tour and homecoming and the hard work to earn the degrees. The salary offer would allow me to afford the American dream of a house, starting a family, and a stable future.

Indiana University Doctor of Jurisprudence Diploma- Represented Four Difficult Years After Vietnam and Opened the Door to a Legal Career, 1973 

Indiana University Master of Business Administration Diploma-

Represented a Transition from Soldier to Business Professional, 1973

Missouri Bar Membership Certificate- Represented My Required Key to Monsanto Employment, 1973

I arrived at Monsanto and immediately felt out of place as the only attorney hired out of law school.   All the attorneys had 3 or more years of experience.  I realized that law school did not teach me how to be a lawyer.  Law school taught me how to think like one.  The path to becoming a lawyer would be one filled with uncertainty and self-doubt.  So much of those early months felt like I did not know what the actual practice of law looked or felt like.  I found myself playing “catch up” – trying to learn enough from past files and older attorneys to feel up-to-speed.  I lacked day-to-day practical basics such as drafting and negotiating contracts, practical court procedures and filings, office politics, and most of all client relations.  I needed to learn how to build client trust and who I could trust in the company.  I watched the other attorneys carefully and sat in as many attorney-client meetings as I could to learn how to prepare and handle various client situations.

I pushed myself, spent late nights and weekends in the company or local law school library or at my desk doing legal and basic chemistry research, pouring over documents, editing and re-editing my work, convinced that at any moment my boss would figure out that I had no idea what I was doing. In retrospect, my first year of practice was the steepest learning curve I have ever encountered. I persevered, worked hard and long hours, did my job, did it well, and built confidence as I started to receive positive feedback. 

Once I had a year’s experience in the corporate law department, I sought out opportunities in a Monsanto commercial agricultural operating company law group.  Once on board there I found my fit with highly educated Ph.D. research chemists, MBAs, and a highly motivated and loyal workforce, many of whom had been with the company for 25-30 years and were extremely loyal and proud of the company.  I continued to spend nights and weekends learning the pesticides produced, marketing and production plans, and the applicable laws and regulations.   And most importantly I became part of project teams involved with complex and multi-million dollar issues. I dedicated my time and effort to networking with the team and supporting members to humbly build trust and accomplish company goals.

Over the 20 plus years I practiced law at Monsanto, I became a loyal company man, not seeking other employment, and my counsel saved the company millions in fines and liabilities. I had assumed loyalty would be a two-way street. The downsizing taught me otherwise. All of a sudden in 1996 the company downsized me for what they said were cost-cutting reasons.  I had given the company my loyalty and the most productive years of my professional life.  Luckily, a good friend and marketing guru at the company counseled me never to fall in love with a company and to focus on selling myself to a new employer.  While I felt anger and frustration at being fired, I quickly pivoted to job search mode.

A week before I left Monsanto, I had accepted a position as Vice President, Legal of Heritage Eviromental Services, a waste disposal company in Indianapolis.  By default, I inherited the personnel department head job which I did but never truly embraced.  After managing several emotional cases as HR head, I knew I wanted to do something else.  After a year and a half, I was downsized again in another cost-cutting measure, although I was glad to leave.  

Indiana Bar Membership Certificate- Represented a Lengthy and Painstaking Process to Practice in My Second State, 1996

I accepted a position as an immigration attorney in a St. Louis law firm in 1997.  That lasted 6 months before the immigrant investor program I worked on was frozen by the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service.  There was a lot of fraud involved in that program and I did not like the law firm environment so I submitted my resignation.

Amid this career challenge, I went to a 3-day Marianst retreat location on the Mississippi River followed by a week’s retreat at a Trappist monastery in Ava, Missouri.  After much soul searching, and a telephone call offering me a position as an environmental attorney for Georgia-Pacific Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia, I accepted the position and worked at G-P in Atlanta from 1998-2002.  

My Georgia Bar Membership Certificate- Another Lengthly and Painstaking Process To Practice Law in My Third State, 2006 

Looking back, being downsized twice and changing careers several times taught me that my value was not tied to any one employer. What felt like career disasters at the time forced me to reinvent myself and discover strengths I didn't know I possessed. I learned that careers. like life itself, rarely follows a straight line. Success came less from brilliance than persistence, adaptability, and a willingness to keep learning. While there were disappointments and setbacks, I was fortunate to spend my career working with talented people, and contributing to causes I believed mattered. I would choose the same path again.

Note-  Monsanto Company doesn’t exist anymore as it was bought by Bayer.