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Welcome back.
On April 17, 1972, the first woman competed in the Boston Marathon.
The next day 21-year-old Jeffrey Mellinger became one
of 300,000 American citizens to be drafted.
I had a chance to meet with him to find out why he's still going Army Strong.
I was right behind a guy that went in a room,
and he was hollering, "No, no, no! I don't want to be in the Marines!"
"I don't want to go to Vietnam."
As I opened my door, it was the Army,
so I looked at the sergeant standing there, and I said,
"I'll trade with him. I'll go in the Marines."
And he told me to basically shut up and get in there, and here I am.
You've got to be kidding me.
You don't know how to work a briefcase? Look, you take...
I'm the only draftee on continuous active duty.
In other words, I have never left active duty since I got drafted.
There's that "Time" article.
Yeah. There's me and my vacant stare from Jump School.
I was test jumping an experimental parachute.
The experiment didn't work so well.
I had open fractures, broken vertebrae, teeth.
There's a couple screws and pins and plates,
and I decided to turn it into a wind chime. [wind chime tinkling]
Look at those soldiers right there. How can you not have a good time with people like that?
I dragged them all over Iraq,
and all they ever asked for was chow and a couple hours of sleep.
[sighs] I stayed up at the hospital for two days with the parents of this soldier.
He ended up dying of his wounds.
If it wasn't for people like him, we'd just have a flag.
I have been unbelievably privileged to serve this nation for as long as I have.
What would possess you to want to go do anything different?
Now you know who he is.
I am not giving a thought to when I'm getting out.
If the phone rang right now and they said, "Mellinger, you're retirement's in,"
"you've got to leave tomorrow," I'd be sad.
I'd shut the door, I'd run you all out, I'd have a good cry,
and I'd pack my stuff up and leave with no regrets. [wind chime tinkling]