Happy Veterans Day

November 11, 2025

It’s Veterans Day and I am grateful. When people ask me if I served, I tell them that I served in the Southern Campaign, University of Georgia 1962-1966. Viet Nam came to the fore my senior year. I was leading a group trying to make ROTC an elective rather than mandatory. As a result my advisor who was a World War II naval combat veteran dropped me. Despite my telling him that I was not being unpatriotic, even I knew the optics were bad. We failed to get ROTC voluntary. Later, I had a course from my ex-advisor that spring quarter and made an A+ despite our differences. I was engaged at the time and headed to Ohio State for graduate school. I had a deferment. Our son was born during the first year at Ohio State and I was never called.

But since ROTC was mandatory, I was in Air Force ROTC for my freshman and sophmore years. I had one of the top three GPAs in the class and was one of five sophmores in the Air Force’s honor society. Tradition had it that if we went into advanced ROTC (which was voluntary) we would be first lieutenants while the other juniors would be second lieutenants. Since my brother had gone through ROTC at Purdue, I decided to follow his example although I had no interest in being a pilot. Instead, I would get a PhD and hopefully teach economics at the Academy. When I got back to campus in the fall I looked at the duty roster. The other honor students who were juniors were first lieutenants. All the other juniors were second lieutenants. But I was the chief master sergeant – the only upperclassman not an officer. I went to the colonel and asked why. I told him I was humiliated and would drop ROTC if I were not a first lieutenant. He said that if I could not follow the orders of my superior officer then I had no business being in the military. I agreed. I walked out and dropped the course. I was bitterly disillusioned. My uncle who joined the Air Force when it became a separate service and retired as a chief master sergeant talked glowingly of how little discrimination there was in the Air Force compared to Americus, Georgia. My brother said the same. And yet, after going through what I confronted during my first two years at Georgia, an Air Force colonel was the first (but not the last) professor who had openly discriminated against me.

My brother was a B-52 pilot and was stationed in Thailand. He was awarded various medals from the Air Force and from the Republic of South Viet Nam. He was talented and had a brilliant mind. If I had his smarts I would have won the Nobel Prize in Economics. At his funeral, one of his crew said “If we got into trouble we knew that Charlie would get us home safely.” Rest in peace big brother.

My father never served either. He was an elementary school principal during the war and being black was not called to service. When I asked him once why he wasn’t drafted he said “I couldn’t cook.” But I had an uncle-in-law who was a mechanic on a destroyer in the Pacific theatre. Only once did he talk about the harrowing times of being below decks shoveling coal while all hell was breaking loose above him. He talked about shipmates going crazy as the boat was rocking and rolling. But mostly, he shut out those memories.

My favorite cousin, who recently died of pancreatic cancer, retired from the Air Force. He never went to Viet Nam but had a Bronze Star from his time in the Philippines. He refused to give any details.

My other half’s father was a hero. He was a Bedford Boy and in the first wave at Omaha Beach. His stories are too personal to tell here.

I don’t regret not serving. I am an economist and believe in comparative advantage. The veterans that I know were great at their jobs and took pride in them. All had careers that were enhanced by their service. I admire them and am grateful for their service.

I am not a country music fan and am not yet adept at the technology of the blogosphere but please go to Youtube and view Kane Brown’s Homesick (official video).

Happy Veteran’s Day.