Serving

MY SISTER, a retired military and civil service veteran, was recently summoned to jury duty, an obligation to which she willingly responded. The duty didn't last long; a plea bargain was reached, and the trial never happened. She did, however, have a chance to meet her felllow dismisssed jurors,and to thus make a few new friends. She puts me to shame. Several years ago I was also so summoned, and when I opened the envelope I regarded the impending experience with a mixture of apprehension, dread, and eager anticipation. I would learn something, and contribute to the jurisprudence community as a good citizen. Alas, it was not to be.My duty was not scheduled to begin for several weeks. I laid the summons on my cluttered desk, where over the days and weeks it somehow got lost in the shuffle. The trial came and went,I assume, some sort of resolution was obtained, and the matter went into the files of the local county clerk, or wherever. When several months later I inevitably came across the summons again, I nearly fainted with fright and guilt. The proceeding, I reckoned, must have gone on without me. I can't claim to be a model citizen, gung o to jump into any form of community or national service, but neither am I a shirker of duty. When I was eighteen I went straight to college, as I would have anyway, glad to have avoided serving in the Viet Nam War as a non college bound draftee. I saw that "police action" as a scam, and still do, another of the many American adventures in naked imperialist aggression. LBJ's gift to the military industrial complex. LBJ, the outwardly tough and strong inwaredly insecure people pleaser. He told the Joint Chiefs; "boys, if yuns want a great big ole war, I'll sure as shootin' give yuns one". In 1981 sis and I had an argument. I claimed that the United States lost the Viet Nam War, she insisted that "we", the United States, had won it. I meekly mentioned that she should take notice of precisely who had been governing South Viet Nam since 1975, and still was, and seemed disinclined to go anywhere. As I recall, she made no response. Military service would had been anathema for me when I was draft elegible at eighteen, and I considered myself fortunate, and still do, that I got a draft card with a number above three hundred. My friends and I used our draft cards as identification to get into twenty one age limit bars between the ages of eighteen and twenty one. Kids of that generation did ths same, all across America's fruited plain. I swear to goodness and to the flag for which we stand that I would willingly report for military service now, at my tender age of seventy one. Easy to say, huh? Still and all, maybe not such a bad idea. Gather together America's retired masses, folks with basic good health, and form them into and elite corps of the elderly. Why not? I can still run, albeit not at my peak prime sub eight mile pace. But I can do a mile in well under fourteen minutes, and that is the current requirement, isn't it? If we're going to kill off our own people in wars, why not kill those who have at least had a chance to live? On the other hand, old folks in peak physical shape are not exactly a dime a doszen, here in the land of donuts and cappuccino. The point, obviously, is to serve. I still occassionally wash dishes at my local senior center, and I did so for four hours a day, five days a week, sans pay, for several years. I got my lunch for free. Anyone can serve community and humanity at any age, by being good in day care, doing well in school, and by working and paying taxes. I'm thinking about volunteering for jury duty. My duty to my country now consists in being a good old man.