In the summer of 1967 I led an Army Company from Fort Bragg through San Francisco on our way to Vietnam. For reasons unremembered we were dressed in jungle fatigues and all were armed with mostly M-16 rifles. Unfortunately the Army forgot the time difference between California and North Carolina and the promised busses had not arrived. So there we were, over a hundred armed troops in SF Airport – not being well received. So we all sang “San Francisco (Wear Flowers in Your Hair).”
Then the authorities put us in a closed waiting room till the busses arrived.
I still like the song.
I should have left home at age 13, but I kept putting it off, you know how that is, finally his song helped get me on the road, hitch-hiking to California.
I didn’t go into the Army until I finally needed a break from the hard (but exciting) living.