Question about the draft.

[kenton]

Our global war on terror is something of a counterpoint to the low man power requirement of modern wars. People I talked to said that the military basically let anyone with a pulse join just to meet their staffing requirements. I think everyone in power realized reinstating the draft would be political suicide.

[Scrounge]

When I was 17 going on 18 in 73, My number was low. I thought about going into the Navy. That year I was given my card as 1-A and waited to see what was going on during the last years. Before I enlisted in the Navy, They stopped the draft I was change to 1-H that I think was Military Standby.

My number was pretty high, but I didn't know what else to do with my life, had just lost my 1st job, and was walking to my favorite bookstore in uptown Whittier with my literal last dollar in my pocket. The USAF recruiter's office had a sign in the window: $326.10/month, three hots and a cot. I went in, and the rest is history. Signed mid-September, and left for Basic Training on the 24th of October. The Yom Kippur war was starting up about then, and my mom thought they were going to give me a rifle and send me to the front lines. Had to explain that was a different country, and it didn't work that way.

[Pressman]

I got word through a friend that my draft number was coming up, and I needed to enlist. So, off to see the Army recruiter. I asked for choice of MOS, 11E10, and choice of duty station, RVN.
When my report to the processing station at Fort Des Moines came up, they lost my paper work, come back next week. Showed up the following week and still no paper work, comeback next week. 3rd time they knew who I was, quickly put me on a plane for El Paso, Tx for basic.
Graduated basic, went to Ft. Knox and found I was getting MOS 11F10, no way, I volunteered for a two week leadership course and upon completion was sent to 11E training.
Graduated with my 11E, got a two week leave and orders for Baumholder, Germany. It was OK as it was spring. But boring beyond belief. Only the 30 days at Graf was there any real experience.
9 months in I went to see the PS NCO, he let me re-enlist for change of duty station and a two rank promotion, PV2 to Spec4. That helped. 30 day leave and report to Ft. Lewis, WA for assignment to RVN.
I ended up in Pleiku with the 69th Armor. Great service, I ended up staying two years and came home with the draw down in 1970.
After ETS I joined the Iowa National Guard and retired with 27 years of service.
It was fun and the retirement benefits are more than worth any inconvenience.

[GregLaROCHE]

I signed up for $288./month. That’s a number I will always remember. Same as the date I got out.

[FISH4BUGS]

I graduated from High School at Leavenworth KS in 1966. Got a 2S deferment, went to Kansas State for one year, went back for one week the second year and dropped out. I got my draft notice before I even got back to my dorm room to pack up.
Blind in one eye and flat feet - got me a 1Y. "....don't call us, we'll call you if we need you"...said Uncle Sam.
What's a poor boy to do?
Go on the road with a band!
I vaguely remember those two years on the road....

[owejia]

Joined Army in March of 66. Basic at Ft. Benning, Ga. Came home after basic, before going to AIT and my draft notice was waiting for me. Life changing experience for me. Some good,some bad and some ugly.

[woodbutcher]

Thank you all for your service.They did`nt want me.Blind in right eye.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[Scrounge]

I wouldn't recommend anyone make a career of the military, but everyone who can should do one hitch. You learn a lot about yourself just making it through basic training. Had family members betting $100 I would NOT make it through Basic. That was pretty serious money in 1973. I did stay for 24 years. The retirement pay is nice, the bad knees and ringing in the ears not so much. OTH, I'd have probably had the same problems crop up if I was working as a mechanic on cars or go-kart. I worked in three different career fields in the USAF. Started as an fighter jet mechanic, wrecked the knees and had to retrain, but it wasn't bad enough to get sent home. Became a photographer, and knowing stuff about airplanes and having a pretty strong stomach helped. About 10 years in photography, then retrained again because the field was overmanned, and I wanted a change. 12 years in satellite communications. Didn't want to be promoted to E8, as I'd get a desk job, and the USAF was doing "Up or Out" so I retired at age 43. Not enough money coming in from retirement to pay all the family expenses, but it did help.

[EMC45]

I certainly didn't get drafted (joined in 1996), but I will say that I served with "military or jail" deferments. One guy was a welder in Charlie Company with me and he had actually done some time for drugs and other assorted crimes. After doing 90 days in county he got scooped up again and the judge told him Navy or 2-5 for violation. He chose Navy. Good worker, made E-5 and celebrated by smoking dope (like a dope) and got Restriction for it - 45 & 45, half months pay for 2 months, reduction in rank to E-3 (he was only frocked to E-5 so he was busted as an E-4) and kicked out on an OTH. Shame

Another guy I knew in Charlie Company was a commercial burglar, and had done time in a Fla Work Prison Camp for assault on a cop. He was a squared away dude though and was good people. He was an E-6 when I met him.

[Rapidrob]

I went to Ft.Holabird,MD to join the Army in 1969. There were 1,200 of us there that day to go into the military.I was US Army thru-n-thru being an Army Brat and being born a Ft.Mede,MD.
A Gunny Sgt in the Marine Corps walked down the very long line pointing at every one of us in line. If you looked like a "normal" teenager you went into the Army and given an olive-drab green card. If you looked like you played high School Football, you got a Red Card for the Marines ( had to have a diploma) He came to me, 6 foot tall and 135 pounds. He gave me a Blue card and laughed at me...."Navy..." he spit out. It did not matter if you had gone to a recruiter or not.
I had guys with tears in their eyes asking to trade cards with them. I knew nothing about the Navy. My Uncle Walter was a WWII SEA Bee. That was all I knew.
35 of us not deemed good enough by the Gunny SGT went to Great Lakes,Ill that cold December night. We got off of the blue buss and it was -20 outside. No heat in the barracks, made in WWII. The Heads were frozen solid. The very first Sailor I ran into was a E5 ( 2ND Class) Bosunmate. " Welcome to the World of ****" he yelled at us. We were there for 16 weeks.
I graduated Boot Camp number 1 in my company. Asked to be a Gunnermate Guns and graduated 1ST in that class out of the "Green House".
I wanted no parts of Vietnam. Many of my High School Friends did not return for their 'Nam tour.
I asked what was the farthest USA home port away for m the 'Nam. "Newport ,R.I" I was told. I also got to pick any ship I wanted. I went new construction Destroyer Escort ( DE-1078 USS Joseph Hewes) not even knowing what the heck a DE was.
Our first deployment was two tours in Vietnam. We came home late 1973.

[WRideout]

For me there was no danger of getting drafted, due to a very high lottery number. In 1972 when I was nineteen years old, I woke up one morning after a nightmare that I was a thirty-five year-old bachelor living with my parents. I went to the army recruiter who said, "Son, we can help you." I was a cold warrior. First assignment after basic and 91B medic school was at Ft Lewis Washington. The 9th Division was just filling up, and we had a lot of Viet Nam vets coming in to finish their tour. My last year on active duty was in Schwaebisch Gmuend, West Germany with a Pershing Missile battalion. I spent half of that year at the field site near Bottingen close to where the missiles were set up to launch.

That period of time came to be know as the "hollow army." Most of the people I knew either drank alcohol or used drugs, including the officers. There was no real sense of duty to country, and discipline within the ranks was poor. I didn't come to appreciate the army until years later when I joined the California Army National Guard. I did finish with twenty years of service, most of that reserve time.

Wayne

[Scrounge]

I went to Ft.Holabird,MD to join the Army in 1969. There were 1,200 of us there that day to go into the military.I was US Army thru-n-thru being an Army Brat and being born a Ft.Mede,MD.
A Gunny Sgt in the Marine Corps walked down the very long line pointing at every one of us in line. If you looked like a "normal" teenager you went into the Army and given an olive-drab green card. If you looked like you played high School Football, you got a Red Card for the Marines ( had to have a diploma) He came to me, 6 foot tall and 135 pounds. He gave me a Blue card and laughed at me...."Navy..." he spit out. It did not matter if you had gone to a recruiter or not.
I had guys with tears in their eyes asking to trade cards with them. I knew nothing about the Navy. My Uncle Walter was a WWII SEA Bee. That was all I knew.
35 of us not deemed good enough by the Gunny SGT went to Great Lakes,Ill that cold December night. We got off of the blue buss and it was -20 outside. No heat in the barracks, made in WWII. The Heads were frozen solid. The very first Sailor I ran into was a E5 ( 2ND Class) Bosunmate. " Welcome to the World of ****" he yelled at us. We were there for 16 weeks.
I graduated Boot Camp number 1 in my company. Asked to be a Gunnermate Guns and graduated 1ST in that class out of the "Green House".
I wanted no parts of Vietnam. Many of my High School Friends did not return for their 'Nam tour.
I asked what was the farthest USA home port away for m the 'Nam. "Newport ,R.I" I was told. I also got to pick any ship I wanted. I went new construction Destroyer Escort ( DE-1078 USS Joseph Hewes) not even knowing what the heck a DE was.
Our first deployment was two tours in Vietnam. We came home late 1973.

Maybe that was my mistake. I volunteered for Vietnam. Wound up in Clovis NM, at Cannon AFB, working F-111D Ardvarks. (Boer Dutch for "Earth Pig.") Rated for Mach II. Cost $12K/hour of flight time. At the time was the most expensive fighter in the inventory, and about $27M per copy. Designed for "Dive Toss" with nuclear weapons. You all know dive toss. It's what Luke Skywalker did in 1977's Star Wars. In the early 80's I saw a poster titled "Lessons Learned From Star Wars." Item one, IIRC, was "Dive Toss Will Never Work!"

Worked with a bunch of guys who'd been to Nam, and came back seriously messed up. Should have expected that, as my cousin Billy came back from Nam before I graduated, and landed under our kitchen table screaming "Incoming!" when one of my experiments cooked off in the back yard. Sat there and shook for a couple of hours. He eventually had himself committed to a sanitarium. While over there he'd shot a little kid who came running up to his squad yelling "Hey, GI! Hey GI!" He got a secondary explosion off the kid, and saved his squad and himself, but didn't know what made him shoot, and couldn't forgive himself for that.

Some of the guys I worked with after my first retraining were photographers over there, and told stories about helping interrogate prisoners while flying in a Huey, threatening to throw them out if they didn't answer the questions, and then doing it anyway once they were done with the interrogation. To this day I don't know if they were telling the truth, or blowing smoke up the ***'s butt. Considering how they talked about the Vietnamese people, I'm thinking they were seriously telling the truth. And yet I also worked with guys who brought back Vietnamese wives.

It was a decade or so before I realized how lucky I'd been.

[Winger Ed.]

interrogate prisoners while flying in a Huey, threatening to throw them out if they didn't answer the questions, and then doing it anyway once they were done with the interrogation. To this day I don't know if they were telling the truth, .

One of the things that really got the public upset and turned off about the war in Viet Nam was a full page picture in Life magazine.
It showed a N. Vietnamese soldier half way between the ground and a US helicopter in flight.

[Scrounge]

One of the things that really got the public upset and turned off about the war in Viet Nam was a full page picture in Life magazine.
It showed a N. Vietnamese soldier half way between the ground and a US helicopter in flight.

That and the photos of the young woman who'd gotten all her clothing burned off in a napalm strike, and the execution of a Viet Cong by an RVN general - pistol shot to the head. Back story that didn't get reported at the time was the VC guy had just assassinated the General's friend, IIRC. Only ran across that myself a few years ago. In a way, I can't blame folks for being upset about all that crap. Unfortunately, they took it out on the wrong people. My favorite guy to hate over it is Robert McNamara. I cannot adequately express myself in a public forum. I'll just leave it at that.