In January of 1965 I was midway through my internship at Wilford Hall, a one-thousand bed USAF hospital in San Antonio, Texas where I was anxiously awaiting word of my next assignment.

I had joined the Air Force my senior year of medical school but not out of a sense of patriotism. There was a physician draft at the time and most doctors could expect to serve in the military for a minimum of two years. Several options were available. The first option allowed a doctor to join the  military service of choice immediately after his internship. By choosing the second option a doctor was allowed to complete residency training before fulfilling his military obligation.

I chose a third option. By enlisting in the service my senior year, I was paid as a second lieutenant and guaranteed an internship at one of the major Air Force Hospitals upon graduation from medical school. As an added incentive, I was told I would receive a preferential choice of assignments for the three year military obligation that followed.

Naturally, I breathed a sigh of relief when I learned I had been granted my first request, an assignment as a Flight Surgeon for a U2 squadron near Melbourne, Australia. By the time that three year tour was scheduled to end my military obligation would be complete and I could get on with the rest of my life. All I had to do in the interim was finish my internship and a ten week course in Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB. 

After months of planning and anticipation, the dream ended. Two weeks before my scheduled October departure date, I was notified that the base in Australia was closing. The trans-pacific flight that followed landed in Saigon instead of Sydney.

In 1965 the United States was rapidly increasing its presence in South Viet Nam. In one year the number of US personnel in country increased from 24,000 to 185,000. I was on the cusp of that build-up.