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.
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.
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.
I got drafted in ‘67, right when LBJ was pumping troops into Nam like crazy. I decided to just go ahead and do my two years, go to Nam and get it over with. To my pleasant surprise, after Basic at Ft. Bliss TX, I spent my tour in Germany, then got an early out to go back to school. Total active duty time — 20 months.
I turned 18 in 1971 and registered for the draft. My lottery number was 30 for the next year so I rushed in January and delayed enlisted into the USAF where I would not go to BMTS until the following year. Nixon called off the draft in January 1972 after I had already held up my right hand and took the oath. It wouldn’t have mattered, they took everyone with a lottery number under 60. I may have the dates incorrect but I know I was in USAF BMT when the last draftees were taken into the Army. I stayed in the USAF for ten years and it was one of the best decisions of my life.
I bet that young Newt Gingrinch married his high school teacher to avoid the draft. Another way to beat the draft was to become a school teacher, like Bill O’Reilly did.
ping
I was drafted and in Fort Dix on Dec.28,1965.