3 - Working Up to an Idea

Summary

Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

— Lao Tzu

The year 1967 would later become known as the Summer of Love, but love wasn't all the world needed in that fateful year, not with the Vietnam War in full swing.

The specter of this long-running and unpopular conflict, that sent young men (and some women) halfway around the world to wage war against people most Americans knew little about, hung over everything like a proverbial American flag obscuring any view of the coffin of a fallen American soldier.

Protests became the order of the day. Returning veterans, already dealing with what would one day be called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), were spat upon rather than revered. And, in an act of civil disobedience, the former Olympic gold medal hero and current boxing heavyweight champion of the world, the former Cassius Clay who was now known as Muhammad Ali, was stripped of his title and banned from boxing for refusing induction into the U.S. Army.

Mark Ain, fresh off his own successful endeavor to earn an MBA with a concentration in Organizational Behavior, was set to travel to Japan for a work assignment he’d set up just prior to receiving his advanced degree.

Once his Japanese assignment was completed, he was already set up to journey to Australia, again for what would be valuable international work experience (though, truth be told, the fact that he’d be living and working on or near the beaches held measurable allure for Mark as well).

And, further toward the horizon, Mark had lined up full-time employment on the West Coast, in San Francisco, where he planned to settle.

But just as it was time to pack his bags and embark on this personally designed global indoctrination into the world of business, the Vietnam War arrived in his mailbox. Mark Ain had been summoned for a draft physical.

“I’d lined up a job in Tokyo for five months. I’d already set up a second assignment working for a technology company in Sydney that would begin after that. But just as I was getting ready to leave for Japan, I got the letter,” he detailed. “That was the Vietnam Era … if you weren't in school, you got drafted.”

Now no longer a full-time student, Mark was put on notice that he would be receiving further instructions.