“Kinship, Stories of Norwich High School, the Draft, and War”

Description

“This is a story about the Norwich Senior High School Class of 1968, their parents, their
teachers, their mentors, and the twenty-five class members who served in the armed forces of the
United States. It is also a story about how the residents of Norwich and Chenango County, New
York dealt with military service and with Selective Service (or “the Draft”) from 1940 to 1973.

Why title this book Kinship, Stories of Norwich High School, the Draft, and War? In
anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of
all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often
debated. Every person in this narrative is connected in some way to the Norwich Class of 1968.
Military service and the Draft exerted an ever present and pervasive presence in American
society from World War II through the end of the Vietnam War.

Edward J. “Ed” Erickson, himself a veteran of Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Iraqi Freedom,
recounts the military experiences of 177 World War II and Korean War veterans, and the 25 men
and women of the Norwich High school Class of 1968. Depending on the availability of sources,
many are extensive and some are very brief, but all are connected to Ed’s high school class. Ed
argues that the Norwich Senior High School in 1968 was at the epicenter of a generational
intersection of shared experiences revolving around the Draft and War.”

–Ed Erickson