[MRM]

What did he say about Alice? I always got the impression she was kind of taken advantage of by her younger hippie friends, but maybe she liked to play den mother to them. I always wondered. I'd love to hear if he had any personal impressions of her.

Doing a tour in the Coast Guard was still probably better duty than carrying a rifle for one of the less glamorous branches. I hope your friend came out of it well. He kind of reminds me of my church youth group leader when I was young. He graduated from high school in 1965 and was offered an all expenses paid visit to points east as an enlisted man. He figured that joining ROTC and going to college for four years and emerging as an officer was just the ticket to avoiding the draft and sitting on the sidelines long enough for the war to end. Inadvertently he graduated just in time to be commissioned for a four year commitment in 1969, which wasn't necessarily a good trade over a two year enlistment in 1965. But it did all work out for him. He was assigned as the officer in charge of the night train running between West Berlin and West Germany and completed his obligation to this man's army dodging only the infrequent shots of East Germain border guards firing at attempted escapees.