Meet the Vietnam War-era veteran who refused to be disqualified from joining the military

Even though he was just a boy in the 1930s and '40s, Gene Regen felt swallowed up by World War II.

Blue star man-in-service flags hung in many windows in Nashville. Neighbors quietly despaired when gold stars replaced them at homes of families of soldiers killed overseas.

Victory gardens popped up everywhere to ensure the troops had vegetables. There was little or no meat in local markets because most of it was shipped to feed soldiers. War effort news reels played in theaters before movies.

Inside his home, the boy watched his father, Dr. Eugene Regen Sr., regularly lament that the military wouldn't let him join. The elder Regen was one of very few orthopedic surgeons in the region, and recruiters told him he was needed in the States.

When the younger Gene Regen got his peacetime draft notice in 1948, there was no hesitation.

"I knew I wanted to serve," said Regen, now 93, "and I was going to."

Military recruiters disagreed.

'I'll wrestle you right now!'

During his physical at the Selective Service office on Church Street in downtown Nashville, Regen had to walk to within inches of the eye chart to see the biggest line.

You're disqualified, doctors said.

"I'll wear glasses," Regen fired back.

You also have scoliosis, a sideways curve of the spine, doctors said. You're disqualified.

"I'll wrestle you right now!" Regen fired back.

It was the third strike that got him: Regen had skipped eighth grade, and though he had graduated high school, he was only 17, too young to serve.

Regen insisted his dad would sign a waiver, but recruiters told him to go ahead and go to college, and to check back in with them after he graduated.

Even though the Korean War broke out in the meantime, Regen indeed reported back to the military recruiters after finishing his undergraduate studies.

The armed forces put him off again; officers told him to try again after Regen finished medical school and residency training.

By that time, war in Vietnam was beginning to heat up. It would become a conflict where many young men tried to circumvent serving or even registering for Selective Service.

Not Regen.

With a curved spine and poor vision, he reported to a Nashville military recruiters' office in 1960. And this time, the Navy accepted him as an officer in the medical corps, stationing him at a U.S. base for two years where he performed orthopedic surgeries, just like his dad.

Regen mostly operated on sailors who got injured in accidents stateside, but now and then, he treated those who had been wounded in Vietnam.

After exactly two years, Regen left the military and started a 40-year practice in Nashville.

He is happy he served, thankful he didn't see combat.

"I'm grateful for the fact that I wasn’t in a mud paddy with my head getting blown off in Vietnam," he said, "and I felt a huge responsibility to serve as I could.

"Responsibility," he said, "is the guiding circumstance of our lives."

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vietnam War: Vet-turned-doctor reminisces on WWII, fighting to serve