two and a half inches

As I was roller skating in Grandma;s basement, I wiped out and fell on my right arm. It would not quit hurting and it was a hurt unlike I was familiar with; so my folks had it x-rayedd  at the hospital.  Turns out there was a cyst growing in the detliod region of my arm. It had to go.  After the surgery, all were on pins and needles waiting for the lab work to come back-and it was benign so no cancer.  bones grow on their ends and surgery back then was not as high tech as today so one of the growth center was damaged and today, my right arm is 2 and a half inched shorter than the left.  I have full use but it is a pain buying a suit coat or anything with long sleeves.  Bonus: I was excused from any written assignments in school as my arm was in a cast and sling. No matter; i did what i liked to do during class-draw cartoons. I  still have the scar and marks of 21 stitches
Years later, when we were married, I got that awful letter, while in college, to report at 6AM for a bus ride from Erie to Buffalo, NY for an army physical-which meant if I passed I would most likely go to Vietnam.  I love my country, refused to run to Canada but the Vietnam war was a political war. I went to Buffalo, hoping the bus would wreck and that we would all be exempt.  Nope.  The physical was an interesting set up -:at on point there were two lines of men, bare as could be .Time to bend over and touch our knees exam.  All of a sudden a beautiful brunette wearing a pink bra and panties shows up.  He passed anyway and the doctor said HE would be good for the troops. Another young man said he was dumb; the directions to go and talk with the shrink would take a genius to find-if you found his office, you passed. The last part for me was a blood test and this doctor looked somewhat human: He asked, "what arm do you want me to draw the blood?"  And I said, "the short one," and he got a little bit upset and asked if I was kidding. I told him the cyst story and he barked out as to why I did not tell the other doctors.  I said I did and pointed to the paper where I even wrote it down.  At that point(no pun), he took a magic marker and blacked out everything the other examiners wrote down and at the top hr wrote: 1-Y and signed his name. !-Y meant I was not fit for combat or almost no military service.
There probably was a lot of kids on the bus that day who wished for an arm like mine; and never came home. \So, when something happens in our lives, God knows the purpose and most of the time we do not; but he is in charge.  Without that short arm, you probably would not be reading this because I had an dark feeling that I would return home from  'Nam in a box.