I’ve never really thought of myself as short. Maybe not tall. But not short. OK, a little shorter than tall guys but taller than short guys.
In the very early ‘70s when I was hanging on for dear life to a college deferment, I would study the official Selective Service height-weight chart.
I had filed for Conscientious Objector (CO) status as soon as I turned 18. That’s what hard-core war resisters recommended, because the Selective Service Board would never believe you if they had you down to your skivvies and were about to send you to basic training and then to Vietnam, and you suddenly blurted out that, based on your religious convictions, you couldn’t go to some foreign country and kill people.
No, the recommendation was to file for a CO as soon as you registered. Otherwise, when your number came up, your only other choices were to go to Canada or drop LSD before your physical—and they were getting on to that one.
Unfortunately, while I think I did have some acid at the time, I didn’t have any acceptable religious beliefs on which to claim CO status—unless you count a desperate desire to achieve Zen enlightenment or Gurdjieffian perfection, whichever came first—hopefully both. Those didn’t count. Draft boards barely accepted the beliefs of those belonging to seriously peace-loving sects like the Quakers. (My brother was at a Quaker college so I would have even been better off riding his questionable devotional coattails than my more, at the time, esoteric ones.)
I did however, have one other way out….of going to war that is. I was probably a bit under 5’ 7” at the time (if that) but convinced myself I was 5’ 8”. My “trick” was to tilt the pencil up a little when I stood in the doorway and made the mark on the wall. Plus, I had a lot of hair back then.
My height was critical because I weighed ±119 which, at 5’ 8”, meant I was only eight pounds over being unfit for duty based on what they now call the Body-Mass Index. Eight pounds is a lot to lose if you only weigh 119 to begin with. But it was a glimmer of hope I kept in my back pocket.
In retrospect, I’m not sure how much I was motivated by fear and how much by sincere anti-war beliefs. Probably a combination. My draft number was 8 (anyone my age remembers their draft number—especially if it was below the cutoff of 120-150) And I did conscientiously object to the Vietnam War. But I think my concern about being drafted was as claustrophobic and anti-authoritarian as it was existential and political—along with a basic instinct for self-preservation.
The war may have been “wrong” in a fairly objective sense (as many of them are), but most of my contemporaries who fought in it weren’t. I understand that now.
Back then, however, I was mainly focused on the fact I was a 20-year old with a college deferment who had convinced himself he was 5’ 8” and just had to lose 8 pounds to be ineligible for the draft.
Fifty years later, I’m 5’ 4½”. (Although I’ve convinced myself I’m 5’ 5”) Which means I’ve shrunk 3 ½”, 2 ½”, or 2” depending on how much I was deluding myself back then. Or now. So I could probably pass a physical now. I’d be even better suited for tunnel warfare—being even shorter and all. But then there’s the claustrophobia thing. And the age thing.
I started this essay planning to describe all the different chairs I’ve tried over the last many decades in a quest to be able to sit in a way that’s as relaxing and posturally correct as possible…and why that’s relevant to being a writer and why my height has made it challenging.
I was going to write about all the dormitory chairs, folding chairs, dining room chairs, hard wooden stools, chairs and stools that go up and down that somehow don’t go up high enough, special pillows so I can write sitting up in bed, those big exercise balls they say it’s really good to sit on. (I forgot to tell Echo to include them in the illustration.)
But, after going off on that time-traveling tangent, I can’t help but be reminded that there are a whole lot of things more important than finding the right chair.
I'm 5,7" and my fiancé is 5,8." Before I met him, I was one of those women who demanded a suitable partner be significantly taller than me, six foot or above. When we first started dating, I was bothered that he was not tall. Frankly, in my book, he was short. But now we're two months out from our wedding (where I will be wearing flats) and I couldn't be happier. I write all that because this post made me realize it's fascinating to hear men talk through body image from a place of not meeting physical requirements—of beauty standards, of war. We hear from women on the topic all the time, but rarely from men.
Hysterical article. You sound like my kind of friend!!! We would have had fantastic times at anti-war rallies.