Mom and Dad both graduated from Griffith High School in 1966 and 1965 respectively. Mom dated dad’s best friend who later became a minister and was the pastor who remarried them after their divorce. They didn’t date long though, and obviously Mom ended up with Dad. My parents had planned to get married and start a life together, but then rumblings of a war in southeast Asia could be heard throughout the country.
The Vietnam Conflict really began heating up in 1964 as it relates to the United States’ involvement of sending troops into battle. The draft began that same year. Dad turned eighteen in January 1965 and graduated high school that same spring. Mom was a year behind in school, though she was two years younger. They had fallen in love and wanted to spend their lives together. There was a lot of uncertainty with the draft looming so Dad decided to take matters into his own hands. He wanted to have some say in which service he was in and what his job might be, so he joined the United States Marine Corps as a supplyman. With the Vietnam Conflict looming and Dad signed up to go to bootcamp; Mom and Dad decided to get married.
Mom’s parents didn’t think this was a great idea. They didn’t want them to get married, only to have Dad go off to war a few months later. They knew they would all spend countless hours wondering if he was going to be killed and leave mom a widow at the age of eighteen. They forbid them to be married. They did what I imagine any star-crossed lovers forbidden to be married would do in that day and age…
Shawn D. Congleton ~ author 