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.
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.
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)
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.
I got my letter while I was on board a destroyer. Turns out the clerk in the draft board office was a goofy women I hadn’t seen since second grade. She was just as clueless back then. I didn’t stick around to reminisce.
My dad had been a WWII enlistee, risen to Master Sgt., awarded a Bronze Star for service in Europe and left after war’s end even though he was offered a commission in the Judge Advocate’s corps.
I graduated high school in ‘66 and one day while working part time in college in 1968 my Dad stopped and had a cup of coffee with me. He knew my deferment was shakey and he wanted to tell me that the way the war and current military effort was being run by Johnson was wrong and treacherous for those being pulled into the military and told me that if I found that I wanted to do something to avoid the cannon fodder of the draft, he was okay with it.
I was to think on that and then in ‘69, I lost my deferment, got engaged to marry at years end and then found myself in the lottery that fall drawing number 66. A few weeks later I saw my second cousin before Christmas at a family dinner. He told me his Guard unit, activated about a year earlier, was returning from active duty where some had gone to Carson and some to Vietnam. He suggested if I wanted a slot in the Army Guard I show up at his company the following Tuesday as the Permanent Party staff was coming in two days before the general reserve members and setting up the manning board for the slots that would go fast.
I ended up going in and enlisting but wasn’t sworn in until February and was only a few days ahead of my call. They drafted up to 195 in that year. I got married and as I had slotted in the manning board a the next Mess Sgt, I sent my new cooks to basic training before I went so I could enjoy my first six months of married life before going off to basic and AIT. Served as a E-1 Mess Stewart who hadn’t even yet gone to Basic or AIT.
My dad told me that he was glad I chose enlistment but he didn’t trust what the Washington crowd was doing.