Detroit, Michigan June, 1968

"Tommy! Tommy, wait!" my mother called behind me as I headed for the door.

"Ma, just let me go. I can't stay here anymore," I told her regretfully, as I turned to face her, a duffel slung over one shoulder, proof of my intention to leave home. I was on the verge of turning eighteen, and with that came the possibility of being drafted. My father wanted me to enlist, but Vietnam was the last place I wanted to go. There was always the Coast Guard, but I was young and rebellious had other plans.

"Where will you go' What will you do?" she asked, tears pooling in her soft brown eyes, tugging at my heartstrings.

I shrugged my shoulders uncertainly. Did it matter" I had just graduated from high school. The world was supposed to be my oyster, but I had few options. It was either find a job and hope I wasn't drafted, or enlist before my number came up. College wasn't an option. I had just barely graduated high school, as it was. It was either work or war, and I wanted neither.

"I'll be fine, Ma. Don't worry. Maybe I'll go to Canada," I replied, offhandedly. Detroit wasn't that far from the border. It would be pretty easy, but Canada wasn't really where I wanted to go. I had another destination in mind.

"Canada!" she echoed, looking appalled. "Tommy, please don't do anything stupid," she pleaded, tears spilling over to run down her cheeks.

I mirrored her frown. She was the only reason I'd stayed there as long as I had, but I wasn't a kid anymore, and I knew if I stayed much longer, I'd eventually end up like my father - bitter and old before his time.

"I'm sorry, Ma, but you gotta let me go," I pleaded in return. No explanations were necessary. We'd been over it all before. I longed to be free, to spread my wings and fly, before it was too late. I knew I was being a coward leaving her behind, but she'd made her own choices in life, and now it was time for me to make mine.

Despite her tears, she reached into her apron, pulled out a wad of cash, and pressed it into my hand. I didn't bother to count it. I didn't have to. I knew it was money she'd been saving for months, maybe years, for whatever reason. Her secret stash, she liked to call it, one of our many secrets.

"No, Ma," I protested, pushing the money back into her hand. "You keep it. It's yours. I don't want it. I'll be fine."

"Tommy," she said, touching my cheek, still as smooth as a baby's. I hadn't even grown my first beard yet, but somehow the government had determined I was old enough for war. "You take it and use it to find your dream. That's all I want, sweetheart. I just want you to be happy and safe." She smiled at me through her tears and stood on her tiptoes to kiss the corner of my mouth, like she was sending me off on my first day of school. "Call me now and then, and let me know how you're doing."

How was I supposed to argue with that' "I will, Ma. I promise," I told her, leaning down to wrap my arms around her and hug her close, not knowing when or even if I'd ever see her again. She was the only thing holding me there, but it was time for me to go. "Love you," I told her, as I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and turned back around for the door.

That was the last thing I ever said to her. I never saw her again.

As it turned out, San Francisco was a long way from home. It seemed like almost another world to me then. My father had been right about one thing - once I'd left home, there was no going back. You could almost disappear in San Francisco, become someone else, hide in plain sight. No longer was I Tommy Kaminski, Jr., only son of an auto assembly worker from Detroit.

My father was proud of who he was. He was proud he'd served his country in Korea. He was proud of the American-made automobiles he had a hand in building and the life he'd worked so hard for, but he wasn't very proud of me.

I suppose I should have been grateful, but like so many of my own generation, we didn't buy into the same dreams of our parents. We wanted to make our own lives and choices, and going to Vietnam just wasn't part of the deal. It was their war, we thought. Our parents' war. Why should we go halfway around the world to fight and kill an enemy we didn't even know" We watched while our friends left home little more than boys and came back without arms or legs and some without their sanity.

War terrified me, but it wasn't so much fear that kept me from enlisting, as it was the desire for peace. Peace and love, that was my generation's mantra. Make love, not war. I know there are some who thought us cowards because we refused to answer our country's call, but it wasn't about a lack of bravery - it was about standing up for something we believed in. So, while our friends were being killed far from home, we were protesting in hopes of bringing them back safe and sound.

It was December 1, 1969, when the powers that be conducted a lottery to determine who would be the lucky winners to fill the void left by those who were dying overseas. It was then Robby and I decided to change our names and dodge the draft. We knew it was illegal, but it seemed everyone was doing it, especially among our own peers. It was not only a way of showing our lack of support for the war, but it was a way of defying those in power and telling them we wouldn't be part of their war. We had our own lives to live and our own choices to make. We were rebels, but we were rebels with a cause, even if that cause was an illegal one.

I wrote home a couple of times, but I never left a forwarding address, so I never expected a response. I had no idea what was going on back home, and it never occurred to me that anything could possibly be wrong.

It was in February 1970 that news of the My Lai massacre turned the world upside down. We took to the streets again with renewed vigor, but what had once been peaceful protests turned ugly. People weren't just protesting anymore; they were insulting and harassing soldiers who returned from war after completing their tour of duty. I didn't see any point in it. Hadn't they suffered enough already? And then, four students were killed at Kent State later that year, and I lost the stomach for the whole thing. Robby and I got deeper into the surfing culture and gave up the anti-war movement all together. All we wanted was to live our lives in peace. Why was that so much to ask"

We moved again, this time to Half Moon Bay a little south of Frisco. It was quiet there, and we managed to find a little house for rent on the beach, where we could surf to our hearts' content. It seemed like all our troubles were over, until the summer of '71 when Robby was killed surfing the Mavericks. Red and I were broken-hearted. She sought refuge in my bed, but it was clear she wanted Robby, not me, and by fall, she was gone. I never heard from her again.

I wrote home again, lonely and homesick, and this time I provided a P.O. Box so that my mother could write back, but what I got was a letter from my father telling me she had died shortly after I'd left home and that it was somehow my fault. He apparently blamed me for her death, accusing me of breaking her heart and telling me he never wanted to hear from me again. As if it wasn't enough that Robby had died, now I had the guilt of my mother's death on my hands, as well as what I thought was my father's well-deserved hatred. I drown my sorrows in drugs and booze, hoping the world would just go away and let me die in peace. I was just about at the end of my rope when I met Jack.

Jack had his own troubles, which weren't so very different from mine. Jack saved my life, pulling me back from the brink of destruction, and we became fast friends. I never thought I could be close to anyone again the way I'd been with Robby, but Jack was like the brother I never had.

Anyway, Vietnam was winding down by then, and there wasn't much support for the draft. Jack and I had both left home to escape the war and fathers who didn't understand us. We both wanted nothing more than to live our lives in peace, waking up each morning to sun and surf.

I followed in Robby's footsteps and earned a name for myself as a champion surfer, changing my name to Tommy King in memory of King Robby. Jack was already going by Smith, and together, we scrimped and saved, partially aided by my meager surf contest winnings, to open a little shop on the beach we dubbed Hang Ten.

It was there on that beach that we celebrated the end of the Vietnam War, and it was there that a girl I later nicknamed Midget found us a couple of years later and brought us home to Rhy'Din.

Tommy King King's Cove, Rhy'Din January, 2015