Waitin’ on the mail was always an anxious time in 1967. That hamburger grinder that was Viet Nam was chewin’ em up pretty fast and was hungry for more. It wasn’t too bad if you was in school and hadn’t flunked much, you went to the bottom of the list. They din’t call you. You got a “get out of war free card” as long as you made grades. If you weren’t in school it was a different picture. Your number floated right up there on top and it was pretty certain you was gonna get grabbed.

If you was like some of those boys you could scoot on up to Canada and sit it out. But momma didn’t raise no boys like that. You was raised to do what was right even if it weren’t sure that it was right. If the men who ran the government said it was right then if you was called you went.  And you did your part.

Vince and Tommy was twins. They weren’t the kind that wore the same clothes and cut their hair alike. They didn’t try to look different but they were their own men and went about their lives the way each one wanted, not worryin’ about who thought what. They was close though, don’t never try and get between them. They was men, cause you were a man at 15, 16, 17 sometimes younger if you could drive a tractor hayin’, bring in stock in the middle of a cold snap so the new calves didn’t freeze, or rode fence all day in August when it was so hot your horse left a sweat trail just walkin’ slow. You were a man cause there was work to do and you were supposed to pull your own weight. And you did.

Cale Linters got called up this week and was shippin’ out to boot this Friday. He didn’t want to go and his ma called her congressman to see if she could get him off the list as he was needed on the ranch what with his dad Daryl down with a busted hip, but it didn’t do no good. He went. Vince and Tommy told his ma they’d help with the hayin’ and stuff when it was time. If they was there anyway.

It was one of the few times in their lives that the twins envied anybody. They envied those boys who had enough money to go to college. Ranchin’ hadn’t been that profitable the last few years and besides who’d do the work if they was off somewhere, ma? They  couldn’t afford to go and there weren’t that many scholarships available for B students. No they had to stick it out and just trust that they wouldn’t get called. Supposedly there was some rule or something that they couldn’t call up more that one man from a family and the boys would argue endlessly about how it should be me and not him cause I would be a better fighter, and you did better runnin’ the ranch and so on.

The agony of waitin’ came to an end when Jeezy the postman left some letters in the mailbox. The boys rode on up in the rain to pick up the mail and there they were. Those official looking letters from the government. One for each of them. Tommy opened his first right there in the rain.  Selective Service System, it read, Order to Report For Induction, The President of the United States, to Tommy Calpers, Box 8, Logan, New Mexico, You are hereby ordered to report for Induction into the Armed Forces of the United States, and to report at …..  Vince did the same rippin’ his open too and his read just like his brothers’. They rode back home slow, dreadin’ havin’ to tell ma the news.

Ma looked at the letters real slow like, checking one against the other, tryin’ to make sense of the words. “God damn them to hell, God damn the rotten sons of bitches” she said real low and tried not to cry. It was the first time in their lives the boys had ever heard her swear and it scared them more than the letter. She hadn’t swore even when Dancer that miserable stud kicked their dad and they missed that big bank payment cause dad couldn’t work. “I’ll fix this” she said “they won’t get you both.” But they did. Rules don’t always mean a lot when there’s a war on. The boys went.

If you were alive then you know how this went. We had a long mean war, bad things happened and sorrow was always near. You can visit the boys anytime. Both their names are on the wall there in DC. Ma and Pa went once. It was terrible. Pa won’t never speak of it to this day. Ma keeps the letters in a box by the bed where she touches it every night before goin’ to sleep. Waitin’ for the mail ain’t important anymore. There’s just a few bills and the Ace Hardware flyer. It builds up to the point where sometimes Jeezy will collect it out of the box and drive down to the house and give it to Ma. “Nothin’ important today, Ms Calpers, just the usual.” “I got all the important mail I’ll ever want” she tells him. It’s what they say to each other every time.