Audie Murphy's Argumentative Essay On Greeting

Billboards along I-35 leading to Austin proclaiming “Bring Lyndon Home” made me laugh almost uncontrollably. A few weeks before, I had depleted the appeals to my draft board to extend my deferment for another semester, and I knew what that meant: the letter beginning “Greeting” would be in the mail shortly. After a spring break road trip from my East Texas college in Commerce to Marfa and Big Bend, I was stopping in Austin to tell a friend goodbye before my draft notice arrived. I wasn't sure what to think about the war in Vietnam. I had been raised to believe in my country and its leaders. I had read about military heroes and had seen Audie Murphy, an orphan boy from Texas, in To Hell and Back at least five times as a kid in the 1950s.

They gonna have to step up. We cain’t let them Communists take over Vetnam, ‘cause all them other countries will follow. But you cain’t trust anything the guv’ment says. When my Tommy died, they sent some major who tells me some shit about how Tommy had been shot in the back by a sniper and died instantly. Talked about how them Cong was cowardly shootin’ a man in the back. But when they shipped his body home, I went to the funeral home. They’d closed the casket, and I called that wimply little man in that shiny suit to open it up. He told me the guv’ment had told him to close the casket. Well, I raised holy hell until he agreed to open it up. By damn, when he opened that thang up, I could see Tommy’s whole face had been blowed off. Shot in the back my ass. I seen men killed in Korea, and it ain’t easy. But I didn’t expect to see my own son like that. I thought maybe it wasn’t him, so I rolled up his sleeve and seen it was his tattoos all right. I sat down there and cried like a baby. I was cryin’ for my dead boy and then for a guv’ment that’d rather tell a lie than the truth.”
His voice broke, and I could feel the depth of his sadness.
“But I’m still proud Tommy died serving his country. He made the sacrifice. These Vetnam vets coming home and gittin’ spit on and yelled at. That ain’t right. It ain’t them boys’ fault. They’re supporting their county.
He stopped and glanced at the sky. “Lookee here,” he said. “Looks like

It was one of those songs that started with a long instrumental intro before any singing. The drummer began with a gentle rhythmic beat, then the violin broke in, and the instruments went on and on with this dreamy sound. The people all around, mainly long-haired young men in bell-bottom jeans and striped or tie-dyed t-shirts and braless women in peasant or granny dresses or bell-bottoms embroidered with flower or peace symbols, began to sway with the music. Soon they raised their arms and swayed in unison as the music looped for what seemed like ten minutes. James and I raised our arms and began to lean with those standing packed in near us, and I noticed the haze of smoke as the strobe lights lit the stage. Swaying back and forth, I realized my head felt light, my eyes blurred, my mouth was dry, and I then imagined myself and my family. I disappeared from the setting but saw my mother and grandfather, and both looked far away with longing and sadness in their eyes, as if I had left or not returned. When the band began to sing, I came back to the present and realized with a start that this must be a contact high, as I inhaled the thick smoke in the enclosed space. James was feeling good and continued to sway. The song, I learned later, was “Song of Peace,” and the lyrics, the best I could hear, were about reaching personal peace, not peace in Vietnam, and urged the listeners to raise their