My wife and I were married on Labor Day, September 6, 1970. I was 20 and she was 19. I think it’s safe to say that nobody thought this was a good idea.
Neither of us had completed college, neither of us had any real marketable skills, and neither of us had any money. My family was blue collar. My father was an electrician for Bays Mountain Construction Company that worked inside the 15,000 employee Eastman Chemical Products Company. My future father-in-law was a vice-president at “the Eastman,” as we called it.
My parents were opposed because we were so young and because we came from two different financial and cultural worlds. “You will never be able to provide for her what she is used to,” he declared
Although my in-laws never expressed any hostility or disapproval to me, in retrospect, I realize that they must have been aghast. I would later say that “I rode into the castle on my broken-down donkey, wearing my rusty armor, and rescued the princess from a life of shallow materialism.” I’m pretty sure the United Methodist pastor who married us had his severe doubts that we would make it very long.
The first place we lived was a decrepit, one-bedroom, furnished apartment in a four-apartment building that was occasionally raided for drugs by the Kingsport (Tennessee) Police Department. The rent was $85 a month and included utilities. Over the next ten years, we moved fourteen times, trying to either follow a job or secure a better place to live.
I was a U.S. Marine Reservist before I met Cindy. I had spent nine months on active duty and was doing the weekend warrior thing when we met. When, in 1972, we were expecting our first son, I had no insurance, a part-time job at Long John Silver’s, and had dropped out of college. We still had no money.
I approached the captain at the USMC Reserve Center and requested activation to active duty. He was surprised. In 1972, men were still being drafted for the war in Vietnam. At the time, I had turned 21 and held the rank of Private First Class. He said, “PFC Epps, are you sure? I cannot guarantee you won’t go to Vietnam.”
I said, “I have no choice, sir. We have a baby on the way.”
He processed the paperwork and a few days later I took the enlistment oath again. After that was completed, he said, “I can do one thing that might help you,” and he promoted me to Lance Corporal.
I was sent to Quantico, Virginia, where I remained for the rest of my enlistment. My son, Jason, was born at our hometown’s Holston Valley Community Hospital. His and her hospital stay cost me $25. The military paid the rest. It was the beginning of better things to come. There would be difficult things to come too. We didn’t know all that, of course. We were just trying to survive and not get shipwrecked.
We made a few friends at Quantico. We lived off base in another furnished apartment. We still had very little money and a used car that cost more in monthly repairs than in payments. We lived through a hurricane but, in the dampness that followed, our infant son developed a lung problem. Cindy moved back to Kingsport for a few months while he recovered.
I began attending an Assemblies of God church with a few other Marines and was joined by Cindy and the baby when she returned. I also played offensive center for one of the ten full-contact football teams on base. It was rougher than high school football as many of these players had played not only in high school but in college, as well. And it was rough because … well, everybody was a U.S. Marine, except for a few sailors.
At the end of the season, I was named to the East All-Star team. A couple of weeks later, we played the West All-Star team and beat them 31-30. Somewhere during that autumn, I was promoted to Corporal.
We attended a weeknight prayer group and Bible study with other Marines and their spouses (if they had one) at the home of Staff Sergeant and Mrs. David Ozanne. Church became our focus and almost all our friends were Christian Marines.
But the times were a-changing, as Bob Dylan sang in 1964. The draft would end in 1973, and, by May 29, 1973, the last U.S. troops would leave Vietnam. It is to the shame of the United States citizenry that those who served in or during Vietnam were treated so badly, often with contempt.
For the United States, 58,220 military personnel died in Vietnam. Over 304,000 were wounded or maimed for life. These were young men, and women too, who served honorably. Some were voluntary enlistees while a little less that two million men were drafted. Yet, they didn’t abscond to the safety of Canada and bravely, if not always willingly, did their duty.
For my part, in 1973 as the war was ending I applied for an “early out.” The military was downsizing and offering its personnel the opportunity to get out a few months early if they were accepted by a college and were going to enroll. I was accepted but then was informed that I was being recommended for promotion to sergeant. But to do so, I would have to surrender my “early out.” But Cindy was ready, many of my close friends were ending their service, and I did not intend to make the military a career.
The Marine Corps provided, through its various programs, the hope that we could have a better life. I took the exam for the College Level Examination Program (a.k.a. as the CLEP test) and received 18 quarter hours college credit while I was at Quantico. I took a night class at the University of Virginia which the military paid for. While I would still have to work to support our little family, the G.I. Bill would pay for tuition and most of the books. It was time to move on.
During my last week of active duty, my maternal grandfather, Charles Duckett, one of the most influential men in my life, died of the cancer he had battled for over a year. When I returned home after boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, he was the first family member to see me in my Marine Corps uniform.
On Friday of that last week, we drove back to Kingsport. On Saturday, we attended his funeral service. I didn’t even own a suit. I wore the uniform of the Marine Corps for the last time at his funeral, trying to hide a shattered and broken heart.
The times were, indeed, a-changing. East Tennessee State University would be my next stop.
TO BE CONTINUED…
[David Epps is the Rector of the Cathedral of Christ the King (www.ctk.life). Worship services are on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. and on livestream at www.ctk.life. He is the bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-South (www.midsouthdiocese.life)]
