I took the aptitude tests at the recruiter's office and I was told that I passed them with flying colors. However, I was told that I probably wouldn't work out too well in any sort of clerk position (hold that thought). Shortly afterward, I took my physical and mental exams at a hulking grey concrete building on the Seattle waterfront not far from the current location of the Coast Guard docks. That building is still there, but it looks like it hasn't seen any use in quite a while. I was given a file folder to keep with me as I visited various doctors in my shorts and t-shirt while they checked me for any physical deformities, or any other shortcoming in my vision, hearing, teeth, etc.. Finally, I was interviewed by a psychologist who seemed mainly interested in whether or not I currently was or ever had been a Communist sympathizer, or even more importantly, a homosexual. I told him no to both questions since at that point in my life I had never met a Communist or a homosexual. Not that I knew of, anyway.
I received a letter from the Army a couple of weeks later telling me that I was an entirely acceptable specimen and that my induction date was set for June 21, 1968, a few weeks after my high school graduation. My girlfriend and her mom were pretty pissed about this decision I had made, so I didn't see much of them after this time. I was driving an old beater two-door station wagon at the time that I had paid $45 for; it had a blown head gasket that I fixed, then drove until I sold it to a friend for $75 a few days before leaving home.
On June 21st, 1968 my dad dropped me off at a building just north of the Ballard bridge to get sworn into the Army. That building is still there, the current home of some sort of a studio complex on Seattle's Elliot Way. With just the clothes on my back and a shaving kit, I joined a nervous crew of young men, some like me, just out of high school, some hippies with long hair and bell-bottom jeans, and some surly ne'er-do-well looking dudes that kept to themselves. A couple of buses idled outside. An Army officer entered the room, got us lined up in somewhat neat rows, had us raise our right hands, then had us repeat after him the Oath of Enlistment:
"I, Michael Lynch, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."After this, we were herded off to the buses for the 40-mile trip to Fort Lewis, just south of Tacoma. There I would attend Army basic training for the next 12 weeks. At that time in my life I had never smoked a cigarette or a joint, never been drunk, never been laid, and never met a person of color. I had a lot to learn.
