Thomas Coleman’s parents saw the draft notice first.
They knew exactly what one looked like. One son had already been drafted for the Korean War. Now a second was being sent to Vietnam.
“They expected me to go to college,” says Coleman, 71, the third of five children.
Coleman, who grew up in Thomasville, North Carolina, figured he’d study English and become a teacher. Instead he ended up at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas for boot camp.
“Oh, that was rough,” says the father of two sons. “That was six weeks of pure headache.”
He went to technical school, learning how to fix plane engines, and then served two tours of duty in Vietnam, a harrowing time with countless sleepless nights spent in a bunker made of empty ammo cans, his weapon at the ready. Coleman says the U.S. Army was camped 9 miles away, and he saw their helicopters get shot down on a regular basis. He remembers visiting wounded soldiers at the hospital down the road, trying to keep up their spirits.
“Some of them were in the process of losing their lives,” he says, softly.
Coleman — who after experiencing some health issues has lived at The Marshall Home for Men since 2001 — was lucky. The worst he ever suffered were cuts and bruises from working on planes.
And though he didn’t plan on joining, he ended up staying in the Air Force for 23 years, crisscrossing the country and even venturing to Spain, Colombia and the Panama Canal.
“Would I do it again? Yeah, I would,” Coleman says. “I enjoyed that uniform. I enjoyed the camaraderie.”
Coleman fondly remembers mail call, when all the guys would sit around, sharing news from home. Sometimes it was more than just the news.
“My aunt used to send me German chocolate cake,” Coleman recalls. “As soon as I got it, as soon as I put the box down, they’d tear it open and cut it up, and I’d get a little piece.
“I’d write her and thank her, and ask her when she’d send another one. I wore her out on German chocolate cake.”
Coleman chuckles at the memory, “Yes, indeed.”
