Charles Day’s editorial “Drafting physicists” in the January 2019 issue of Physics Today (page 8 brought to mind my own interesting interactions with the military during my early years.
I was too young for the Korean War but still had to register for the draft at age 18. After that I had various deferments, mostly for education. My graduate schooling was supported by a National Defense Education Act fellowship, which gave priority to students who planned on becoming college professors.
I received a PhD in 1966 and accepted a position as an assistant professor of physics at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City. That employment ended my educational deferment. In a few months I received notice to report for the physical, in Sioux Falls. I remember taking the long overnight bus ride from Rapid City with some of the students I’d taught at the School of Mines.
The head of the physics department was dismayed that I would have to leave my position. He encouraged me to appeal and wrote a letter for me to present to the draft board, stating how hard it was for him to recruit a college physics professor and how much the nation needed to educate upcoming physicists and engineers. Apparently, the members of the draft board were persuaded: I did not have to report for duty.
Years later, at my high school reunion for the class of 1955 in Huntley, Wyoming, I noticed others had red carnations in their buttonholes. I asked the woman at the desk about them, thinking that I might be getting one. I was told that carnations were for those who served in the armed forces. Not until then had I felt even a twinge of regret for not serving my country. It did not matter what accomplishments I may have had as a physicist; in fact, no one there knew—or cared—what those might be. Without a carnation, I was labeled.
