It's funny how a piece of paper can make your world fall to pieces in less than ten seconds.
Ned would probably laugh until he cried if he wasn't so damn angry and scared. He hadn't done anything to deserve this, but then neither had Buck Rodman and he'd been drafted straight out of high school. Buck had only been in Nam for three months before he'd stepped on a landmine and bought himself a closed casket funeral and a 21-gun salute.
He calls Nancy, asks her to meet him. She says she can't make it until later in the afternoon. "That's fine," he tells her, although he feels like every nerve in his body is a live wire, and either he's gonna tell her or he's gonna combust. He hangs up before he can give the news over the phone.
He runs until his lungs are bursting and his muscles scream and then he runs back to his dormitory and showers and puts on clean clothes.
He walks into the diner where they'd arranged to meet and breathes out a long, slow breath. She looks beautiful sitting there, yellow dress and flame-colored hair against her pale skin. The sunlight filters in through the window and makes the highlights of her hair shine. She looks like home and his chest hurts to think that he has to leave her.
"I got my draft letter."
He almost kicks himself. First damn words out of his mouth? Can't even kiss her hello before you tell her Nickerson?
Nancy doesn't cry, or if she does, she doesn't do it in front of him. That's Nancy for you. He's gonna marry that girl if Nam doesn't kill him.
She does cry as he's walking towards the plane, he looks back and sees her bury her face in Bess Marvin's shoulder as the cousins sandwich her between them. Carson Drew and his parents stand beside her, his mother holding her handkerchief to her eyes.
For one panicked moment, Ned wonders if he'll ever see them again, or if he's headed for the same ending Buck had.