Andrew J. Kingston

1968

Ronald

 

Ronald was going to make America great again. He didn’t know how - not right now - with all the draft dodging, filthy hippies and the proliferationalisation of addictive mind bending narcotics in degenerate public university campuses, but he was sure as hell going to make his mark and a mark for his country.

 

After all, he’d been someone in elementary. And junior high. Someone his classmates and teachers looked up to. Even his classmate’s parents respected him. He hadn’t had to throw his weight too much and only did so when it was really necessary. Something went wrong in high school - not just with Ronald, but with the whole goddam society getting overrun by the filthy beatnik invasion. Musicians, writers, artists and wasters all given way too much time and respect as if they had something important to say. Sons of bitches would have gotten what for if he’d not have landed in a load of trouble for dishing it out. He’d been unfairly sidelined and - to some extent victimised - but now he was over it now, studying an Ivy League degree and back on track, ready to do whatever was needed to help his family. And the country, if the country ever deserved it.

 

He was going to do something about the whiners and whingers. They could moan all they liked about the Viet Cong and the draft. He wasn’t afraid. Filthy commies. Filthy commies the US of A should despatch properly. I mean, they were being despatched, but get a good guy in the White House and they’d get the whole thing over and done with. Who’d he have to call? He’d push the damned button himself. Worked for the Japs; why not for the gooks?

 

In the meantime, there was the draft lottery and looking after your buddies. Ronald had received 351 and with a number so high, accepted he wasn’t destined to serve his country in active service. Shame. Most of his buddies had drawn similarly high numbers. They weren’t celebrating, but had decided to go chat over the situation over a few beers now the weather had picked up and the secretaries had started hanging in bars after work in their dinky summer wear.

 

Ronald couldn’t help wondering if there was some greater intelligence at work. The draft wasn’t fixed - that would be unconstitutional. And he didn’t believe in luck, unless it was the kind you made yourself. But some greater intelligence, surely, had picked out those suited to worthwhile non-combat pursuits. Ronald had received only what looked like a break from Vietnam.

 

Best leave the front line to jocks and the other kids who used to shake him down for lunch money. They were the draft people; he - Ronald - was not. The proof? He’d been exempted four times already on college grounds. Four times; like he was some kind of fully fledged academic. He chuckled to himself. ‘Academic’. Now, the lottery. 351. And if there was any chance his number would come up, he’d made sure he had something up his sleeve he could fall back on.

 

Some might call him a dodger, but there had been no actual dodging.

 

Still, having served in Military Academy, he’d miss the uniform. Ronald strutted and puffed his chest and made a quarter turn to face his full length mirror. He pointed at his reflection, anticipating a time when he, Ronald, would make waves everyone would be talking about and wearing a sharper suit than this cheap cloth he’d been bought by some aunt or other.

 

He gestured with his comb. “It’s not just the soldiers either,” he said out loud, squinting, nodding and gesturing with his hands like he was measuring the size of a decent size fish he’d let get away.

 

“The war’s being fought by the front line. No one’s denying it.

 

Shoulders raised in a shrug, then allowed to drop, the lines of his suit not following quick enough.

 

“It’s also being fought behind the front line, in supplies chain and logistics. The medical corps. And those at home, keeping our great democracy on the road; the boards, the politicians. The police, National Guard, intelligence, emergency and public services. The teachers and medics and street cleaners….”

 

Could he include property magnates? Probably not. Not now, anyway. People would soon see, however, that keeping business and the mercantile world turning was - if anything - every bit as important as fighting a two bit war on the other side of the world.

 

The fight, in whatever form it took. That was the thing. The military; of course it would prevail. It went without saying, without or without the bomb. In all likelihood, the message would be that they wouldn’t need to nuke. Which was a shame. Drop the goddam bomb and be done with it. Less for the medical people to have to deal with when soldiers came back, fucked and in need of hospitals for whatever wounds and injuries they sustained on the battlefield.

 

Far better to use the bomb. ‘Mutually assured destruction’? That’s what everyone talked about when they talked about the bomb. But really, get in first - get in quick and it was a ‘win-win’.

 

All things considered, after the evening’s Beaver Patrol, Ronald was going to focus on his short term goal. The family business. He, after all, was a businessman. That’s where his strengths lay and if the country was going to get back on track, it needed him to succeed where he could best succeed.