Yep. A guy that lived a few houses away was rejected for a heart murmur. He went to Houston where his BIL was a doctor, had it repaired, which wasn't exactly without peril in those days, and joined up. Came home for couple of days after graduation from basic.
I can remember him clearly standing the driveway in a boonie hat with those big ears sticking out , as the folks got ready drive him to the bus station to head to wherever he was embarking from. He was a popular guy in the neighborhood and my best friends brother. That was the last time anyone at home saw him alive. He was killed inside of two months of getting there.
That was a bad summer in the neighborhood. Another guy who had just got back from Vietnam was married at the church down the street. After the reception, he and his bride hopped into his old Corvair, went about a 1/4 mile, had a blow out and slammed into a bridge abutment. Killed both of them on the spot. Their friends who were chasing them blasting their horns, as was the custom, witnessed it, while all the guests up at the church heard the crash. One of the chasers rolled up in the church lot seconds later, hysterical and running to deliver the news of the crash. Every man and boy there ran to the site of the wreck, beating the cops and the ambulances, but there was nothing to be done. The bride was torn up beyond recognition. My cousin who was one of the bridesmaids, came running up a minute or so later. We tried to keep her back, but from where she was standing she could see them both, she fainted on the spot. She's never been the same, has huge case of agoraphobia and will not leave her house for fear of something terrible happening.
The death of those three that summer tore that neighborhood apart. I often wonder if it wasn't partially responsible for the explosion in drug use there in the year that followed?
I haven't thought about that damned wreck in decades. I wish I hadn't.
