The monumental stature of Muhammad Ali has been well covered in the media since his death June 3.
Recognition of his championship boxing achievements, his personal risks taking activist stances, his humanitarian energy and his courage in dealing with Parkinson’s disease are a fitting testament to his greatness.
Through all of this, I’m particularly drawn to Ali’s 1-A draft classification in 1966, and his refusal to be inducted into the Army the following year.
During that period, the Vietnam War was rapidly escalating, and America was in dire need of youthful fodder. Conscription was the route taken to drastically increase the numbers.
I received my 1-A draft classification and induction notice in late 1965. I immediately joined the Marines.
This was very early in the war, and I naively believed that America’s leaders wouldn’t lead us astray in the threat they claimed was imminent in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
Coming from rural white New Hampshire, military culture positively broadened my experience with racial diversity.
By the summer of 1966, I was in Okinawa training with others destined for Vietnam, many of African American and Hispanic origin.
An assault ship took us to Quang Tri Province, the northernmost of what was then South Vietnam. Our bonds became especially close in the war zone. We became Brothers. One of my closest Brothers was a Black PFC from Kentucky, not far from Ali’s hometown, who the Selective Service had nabbed. He was the same age and rank as me.
During 1967, a few months after I was seriously wounded by a Vietcong landmine, I learned of my Kentucky friend’s death from a mine explosion in an area close to where I had been medevaced. His presence has remained with me through the decades, and his needless loss still haunts. I have visited him at The Wall in Washington, D.C. Him and so many others.
Putting it mildly, most Vietnam vets I know became disillusioned with the war soon after landing in-country. Some before deployment. As the war dragged on, the futility of U.S. intervention became increasingly obvious to young men about to be drafted and to much of the general public. Even to some politicians.
Today, the life of Muhammad Ali is recalled and celebrated following his passing. I believe he was ahead of his time in refusing to be drafted. I admire the fact that he stood by his strong antiwar convictions, as did so many others. In those turbulent war years, there were no good choices.
This respect I hold for Ali in no way extends to those who were cheerleaders for the war but found devious ways to elude the fray and save their chickenhawk skin.
(Paul Nichols lives in Loudon.)