Posted on 01/01/2014 10:27:22 AM PST by 1raider1
Today is the day the Syfy channel has it's annual Twilight Zone marathon. I just watched the 1963 episode "In Praise Of Pip", which has the Vietnam war as its background. I got to thinking of those times (I was 13 then) and the fact that I knew several guys of draft age that got MARRIED pretty much to get out of going over there because they weren't taking married men then. I can't remember anyone who thought that getting married to avoid the draft was a particularly bad idea back then. Weird huh?
I got my “Greetings from the President of the United States” letter back in early 1966. Immediately went and joined the USAF.
A few days later I got another letter from the draft board, as they had their quota, and to ignore the earlier letter. By then I was already enlisted for four years.
They probably viewed marriage as something that they would inevitably do someday anyway, so why not do it sooner rather than later?
Regards,
Got my letter Jan 69. Didn’t get married til I got out, then wished I never had.
I apparently made an error on the deferment card, a transgression I'm sure they would have overlooked had it not been for the envelope. They through my a** into the lottery. I wasn't even aware of it at the time.
I went into the draft board, can't remember why, and there was that envelope in my file. They told me about being in the lottery the previous year. My number was 208, they drafted up to 205 that year.
Life is funny sometimes.
I guess I was a big dummy. or the gals I dated weren’t. ;-)
I had 317 in one of the last drafts.. I enlisted.
No wife, no kids.. ‘til much later.
Getting married. Actively engaged in farming. College student. Any number of ways to avoid the draft. All legal...
It’s possible some of those who avoided the draft had children killed because of the ROE’s, Fast & Furious, Benghazi, or other traitorous acts by this admin.
When I went for my physical in ‘68 I was rated 1Y due to deafness. A little later I was 4Fd for the same reason.
Never registered for the draft until I was 21. That sure got me a few stares when I walked into the SS office to ask if I should register now?
just caught a few minutes of it myself. Good episode.
after WW2 we stopped fighting wars to the finish.
even after 9/11 we insisted upon fighting in such a way as to spare non combatants, and we also ignored the fact that places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia were the breeding grounds and training centers of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. we gave them a pass for political and economic expedience.
During WW2 we turned Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden and in the east Tokyo, Yokohama etc into cinders....all before we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
war was fought to the finish. if you are going to fight a war, fight it to win....no quarter.
I thank all members of our armed forces for their service, but totally understand not wanting to go and fight a war that is being fought for the purpose of fighting it, and not winning it...
So the choice was to go into the military and get yelled at or get married and get yelled at.
As is sometimes said...."all gave some,some gave all".I gave at least a bit more than did BillyBobBlythe,OsamaObama and others but far,far,*far* less than all-too-many guys of that era (and gals too).
I didn't, I just joined the Navy being an engineering type, and proceeded to defend my country from expansionist Communism.
My Father had educated me completely on the facts about Communism, and I learned I wanted none of it here.
It seems I failed miserably.
Interestingly, in sixth grade California public school, I did considerable punishment time in the Principal's office for speaking out against Communism in class.
I should have seen it coming.
A military draft is a form of slavery. We tolerate it in times of a major, declared war like WW-II because, if we ever lost one of those, we’d all be slaves. But the idea of telling the boy next door that he has some sort of a patriotic obligation to go into harms way over some sort of a geopolitical game which is not even being prosecuted with any sort of serious intentions and without so much as a declaration of war is basically heinous. They got away with it one last time in Korea. With VietNam in the late 60s and early 70s, it blew up in their faces.
Similar circumstance.(feb 1968)..I was seeing the recruiter he had told me he had his quota for the month. I walked home and before getting to my porch, I could see this envelop popping out of the top of the mailbox...eeeyep, went up stairs, called the recruiter and he told me to bring the papers down to him that afternoon at 1pm....
Afternoon came, walked back to the recruiter’s office, showed him the papers, he told me go upstairs and get in line, got sworn in...and left that night at midnight, wizzzzz bang GONE!...(5 years active)
***When I went for my physical in ‘68 I was rated 1Y due to deafness. A little later I was 4Fd for the same reason.***
When I reported for induction and physical, I noticed while waiting in the last room, that the Dr would look at the physical report, then grab a paper from the Accepted or Rejected pile.
When he looked at my report, he grabbed the Reject letter, then stopped, looked at my physical report again, then grabbed the Accepted paper.
I was in.
Stuff having to do with preserving food too, like being in refrigeration.
I had a *somewhat* similar experience.In the summer/fall of '69 (just having turned 19) I hadn't heard anything from my draft board.Several guys convinced me that that wasn't good (they weren't playing with me...they honestly believed that) and so,as a result,I enlisted.It turns out that that draft lottery they held in December of '69 would have applied to me had I not already joined.On a cold,dark night in December of '69,while sitting on my foot locker in BCT at Ft Know,KY,I read in the Louisville Courier-Journal that my number was 327...meaning there was no way I would have been drafted (I think the paper said that they wouldn't need to go past #150).I cried myself to sleep that night.
Strangely, many of my age who didn't serve now tell me they regret it, and that in their maturity they see the value in serving a higher purpose, and even regret missing out on the experience.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.