Richard Franks, who is now practicing law in Denver, is a Springfield native and a graduate of what, in the 1960s, was still Southwest Missouri State College. As he entered his senior year of law school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1968, he discovered to his chagrin that the draft board was cancelling ALL student deferments for graduate school after the current school year. This was, of course, the height of the Vietnam War. While he was in no way a supporter of the Vietnam War, he discovered that the U.S. Marine Corps was in bad need of lawyers—Judge Advocates General, or “JAGS” as they’re called. So he joined the Marines. And for a year, in 1969-70, Richard Franks and a close-knit group of fellow trial lawyers were assigned to Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam. There they were either prosecutors or defense lawyers trying court-martial cases ranging from sleeping on post to black-marketeering to murder. When they weren’t busy with their jobs, they tried to have as good a
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