Losing My Country, Keeping My Soul

It was 1967, and life in America was the best. I lived and surfed in Miami, Florida, where the waves were as big as the bikinis were small, and every day was another party. The war in Vietnam was an abstract thing. We all knew it would be over soon. I thought I would be riding my surfboard forever, but the US Army had other plans. Without any warning I was drafted, forced into a conflict I neither understood nor believed in. While others went off to be slaughtered, I went AWOL. What followed was a two year journey of love, despair, murder---losing my country, keeping my soul.