Upon completing Basic Training I was shipped to Ft. Devens, Massachusetts, for AIT (advanced individual training). Morse code instruction was to prepare me for Army Security Agency (ASA) assignments in various parts of the world, intercepting communications from other countries. Alongside the Dot-Dash-Dot training was an orientation in anti-communism. The year was 1965 and the U.S. was deep into the Cold War with Russia. The war in Vietnam was cranking up. Lecturers would alert us to the “reality” of agents working in bars and clubs in Ayer, MA, the small town near the post. The most difficult part of this program was the films. I will always remember one showing people being machine gunned into open trenches in Cuba following their revolution. (Many years later I read in a biography of Fidel Castro that said these executions were true and that Raul Castro was a force behind this type of mass murder. Fidel was lighter.) I sat in the class in tears. I was confused and repulsed and doubted the “agents in Ayer” as well as questioning why we were being exposed to the butchery of our enemy - - communism.
Anxious and not knowing what to do about the situation, I decided to take a weekend pass to Marblehead, MA, and act out as a crazy person in the town square. My plan was to be arrested and returned to Ft. Devens and reassigned as a baker or cook. Anything to get out of the disturbing classes! While this “crazy” plan was percolating I went to Cambridge to play tennis with Howard Burkholder, a student at Harvard. We had played together at Goshen High School. I screwed up the courage to tell Howard my predicament. He immediately suggested it would be good to talk with his father, a professor at Harvard Divinity School. I met J. Lawrence at the Harvard Memorial Chapel. It took five minutes for him to recommend that I should seek a discharge from the Army as a Conscientious Objector (CO). My background was in the Church of the Brethren. But I also had many Mennonite friends, including Howard. The Brethren, Mennonites and Quakers are known as historic peace churches. However, I had dropped out of church activity as I entered high school and did not seek CO status with the draft board. The idea put forth by Professor Burkholder was familiar territory. I started down the road of seeking a discharge.
The Department of Defense had a regulation for CO discharges because they anticipated that some members of the armed forces would come to the realization that for various reasons of conscience they would not be able to continue service. The regulation was designed around the same CO application used by local draft boards. My first inquiry about this regulation took me to a chaplain’s office where, ironically, the man could not locate the regulation. The personnel office helped me locate it and I applied for a discharge. Immediately I was taken out of ASA classes and assigned to a “casual” company. This meant that each morning I would report to a location and get assigned to a work detail. The motor pool seemed to be my calling. I had never been interested in motors or mechanics. One morning I found myself under the hood of a large truck, straddling the engine and scrubbing it clean. (Oh, if Dad could only have seen me! He was a very good mechanic and I never applied myself to learning while assisting him.)
While waiting for word on the discharge from the Pentagon I lived a rather normal soldiers’ life. Weekend passes to Cape Cod were fun. A soldier friend and I went into a bar on a Saturday afternoon and after a little time passed we realized that all the people dancing and having drinks were men! On another occasion I went into a club where John Lee Hooker, a big favorite of mine, was performing, I spotted a really attractive woman sitting a few tables away. While Hooker was singing the blues and I was wanting to get to know the woman, another woman came up to her table and they left the club arm in arm. I continued to play tennis and won the Ft. Devens singles tournament. The next stop was the First Army tournament at a post in New York. The Ft. Devens paper said that “Golden was unable to go to the tournament due to duty demands.” Washing truck motors! Come on!
Finally, the decision on my application returned, with orders to report to Ft. Bliss, Texas for artillery training. My application, I was told, was one of 10,000 requests for discharge per month received by the Pentagon. We were in Vietnam! There was no way for applications to be processed as to legitimacy and it seemed that denial was the only action to be taken. During the Ft. Devens time I had made contact with the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, directed by Rev. Harold Sherk. He counseled persons in the military and others needing assistance in working with draft boards and the military. His guidance and help from Mennonite and Brethren Peace staff were very significant in my pursuit of a discharge.
Next week I will tell the tale of a second request for discharge.