Pt. 2 - My Teenager Politics

First, a little family history.

My father was born Chicago but his family was living in the Los Angeles area when he met my mother, Verna, on a double-blind date. Verna's family moved to Los Angeles from Oklahoma City in 1933, because her mother was having severe respiratory problems associated with the chronic dust storms plaguing the Dust Bowl at the time. Dad's family was Irish Catholic and Mom's family was Methodist. When they decided to get married, Mom first had to convert to Catholicism. Dad would probably have been kicked out of the Lynch family if he had married someone outside of the Church.

Dad and Mom engagement night - 1948

After Dad recovered from the wounds from his Korean adventure, the Army sent the growing Lynch family to Ft. Lewis, WA.  I believe that he was stationed there until he separated from the service in the mid-'50s when the family moved back to Los Angeles. I recall living in San Pedro, Culver City, Redondo Beach, and spending a lot of time at my maternal grandmother's home in San Gabriel. 

Dad worked in the military aircraft industry in Southern California until 1961 when he got a sales job (of all things - a job he may have been uniquely unqualified for) with a company called Harvey Aluminum in Seattle, WA.  So, that year the now large (six kids) Lynch family boarded a Boeing 707 jet airliner and took off north to Seattle. Our first home was in the University District. The city was gearing up for the 1962 World's Fair; the iconic Space Needle was only halfway finished and the I-5 highway was only completed up to the University District at the time. We kids were quickly enrolled in the Blessed Sacrament Church Catholic school a few blocks away from the house.

Baseball Practice - 1964

It didn't take long for Dad's sales job to flame out. After an employment dry spell, he was hired by the Boeing Company, and the family (now seven kids) moved into a large house in the Seattle Fremont neighborhood. No more expensive Catholic school for the kids; we all started going to public schools again at this time. Dad's new job kept him on the road a lot, always working on different Boeing military weapons projects including the Minuteman ICBM nuclear missile, the air-launched cruise missile, and an oddball hydrofoil boat for the Navy. Mom eventually went to work at Sears, and the Lynch kids all became latchkey kids.

The Lynch family at the Fremont house  - Probably around 1964

Okay, still with me? When I was a young kid, I was always worried that we were all going to die in a nuclear war.  Other than that I wanted to be a professional baseball player when I "grew up." That simple goal faded after a while, but meanwhile, the '60s were going full blast: the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Rights Movement, the assassinations of President John F.Kennedy, his brother Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., the Democratic National Convention riots, the Apollo space program, the Vietnam War, and many other events too numerous to mention here. Women were burning their bras and young men were burning their draft cards and dodging the draft, with background music provided by an explosion of creative artists of all sorts. Oh yes - and hippies!

So, I grew up in a conservative (but not homophobic or racist, for some odd reason) Catholic family with well-meaning but somewhat neglectful parents. Dad had a long military history and had secured a good job in the defense industry. However, I don't recall ever participating in any political discussions at home.  We were told that we were fighting the Commies in Southeast Asia, but that's about all I knew about the war. I would say that I was a pretty blank slate, but starting to show signs of the  bleeding-heart liberal that I am today. My political outlook would sharpen a lot during my year in Vietnam.

Next up: Let's join the Army!

Pt. 1 - The Spring of 1968

In the spring of 1968, I experienced what was the only man-to-man talk I ever had with my father, John. I was seventeen-years-old and would be graduating from Seattle's Lincoln High School in June. I was an indifferent student at the time and was barely maintaining a passing average, thanks to my girlfriend's mother who also happened to be my Art teacher and didn't mind giving me A's.

Two things precipitated the talk with my father: the Vietnam War and the draft.  Since a college deferment from the draft wasn't in my immediate future, nor a deferment for being married with kids, Dad pointed out that chances were good that I might be lugging a light machine gun through the jungles of Vietnam soon if I didn't come up with some other plan. The Tet Offensive had started in Vietnam at the end of January 1968 and really had the American public stirred up about the war, but there was no end in sight.  At the time, I was a pretty good car mechanic and had developed an interest in boats, so off we went to the Army recruiter to see if they had any non-combatant jobs that might be aligned with these interests of mine.

Why the Army? Well, my father was an Army NCO combat engineer whose unit had been rushed to South Korea from occupation duty in Japan after the North Korean invasion of the peninsula in 1950. He was severely wounded in the legs during a North Korean mortar attack while fighting on the Pusan Perimeter and was convalescing in a hospital in Japan when I was born that September. Dad wasn't an Army lifer, but his father was - He was an officer that fought in WWII (including participation in the Battle of the Bulge) and managed military academies later in his life.  So, the Army it was.  Looking back, the Navy might have been a better choice.

My father, John Lynch, Jr. in 1947. Probably Ft. Eustis, VA.

It turned out that the Army had a Brown Water Navy, operated by the Transportation Corps in cooperation with the Navy in Vietnam at the time. I decided to sign up to be a marine diesel mechanic working on the Army's LARC-V, LARC-XV, and BARC amphibious vehicles. The US headquarters for these vehicles was located in Ft. Story, VA.  The recruiter told us that my chances of being assigned to work on these vehicles in Vietnam were low because they were basically operated only out of the base at Cam Rahn Bay.  I would probably be assigned to an outfit somewhere in Europe or elsewhere in Asia. All of the recruiter's assumptions proved to be incorrect. I signed up for a three-year enlistment in the Army with Dad by my side (because I was still underage).  Three weeks to the day after my graduation from high school I was inducted into the Army.

Next up:  My politics.