Topics addressed by Lembcke: getting a deferment while in college and then an extra two years of occupational deferment as a teacher; considering when he first became aware of the war in Vietnam; attending a student leadership conference his last year of college and hearing someone from Students for a Democratic Society speak; reflecting that his father died the same day Bobby Kennedy was assassinated; attempting to get out of the draft because we was the sole surviving male in the family; getting called in for induction in July 1968; his complex feelings getting drafted and leaving his mother alone; finishing basic training and going on to advanced training in chaplain assistant school at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn; increasing awareness of the situation in Vietnam and growing opposition to the war; arriving in Vietnam in early 1969; his several assignments as a chaplain assistant; coming home in February 1970 and joining the anti-war movement; enrolling in grad school at the University of Northern Colorado; involvement in ant-war movement activities on campus and with Vietnam Veterans Against the War; meeting his wife there who was also active in the anti-war movement; observing that returning veterans were more opposed to the war than the general public--a public that didn't seem to be aware of what was happening in Vietnam. The interview was originally recorded on two audiocassettes, and it cuts abruptly at transition point on tape 1 at 00:47:09 before continuing.
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