This year is “Woodstock’s 52nd Anniversary.” I want to relate my Woodstock memory.
In 1963, I was in the Army Reserve, attached to the 77th, “Statute of Liberty” Division, which was depicted in the film “Hacksaw Ridge.” I was a radio telegraph/telephone operator, with a “Secret Clearance.” When I went off to basic training, I knew I would eventually be assigned to communications, but didn’t know what position. I remember my father called me, and said the FBI was in the neighborhood, questing our neighbors about me. I realized that I had done well on the Morse Code test, probably because at the time I played two musical instruments, but I digress. I was with the 77th Division until it was disbanded, and then awaited, for reassignment.
Finally, I was attached to the Army Reserve, 310 Military Police Battalion, stationed at that time, at Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, New York. I was in charge of the communications section.
It was August 1969, and we had just finished our two-week deployment at Camp Drum in Watertown, New York. This was my last summer camp, I was to be discharged in September.
So here I was leading my section back to Brooklyn. I was in the lead, driving a ¾ ton truck with my men in the back, followed by a duce and a half, that’s a 2 ½ ton truck filled with the radio equipment. We had traveled south from Watertown, N.Y. on Route 81 to Binghamton, N.Y., then east on the new Route 17, the “Quick Way,” to eventually meet the New York State Thruway, which would take us back to New York City.
Somewhere south of the Catskills, we stopped on the road for a break. Across the four-lane highway, divided by a grass median, were a group of youngsters, mostly girls, also taking a break. Of course, my guys, who hadn’t seen a girl in all of two weeks, started yelling back to them. The girls wanted to know where we were heading, and we told them back to New York City. They yelled, they had a better idea, that we should come with them, and hang out. My guys yelled where are you going? They yelled back a place called Woodstock. My guys looked at me, all I said was NO! All I wanted was to get back, be discharged, and resume my graphic design career, and not spend the next twenty years in Leavenworth.
