I was drafted.
8 of us out of about 200 had a blue sheet of paper on our induction record books.
They haul us off into separate room and a Marine 2nd Lt. comes in and tells us he is going to administer the oath. (I was 5’9” and weighed 160 and my concept of a Marine is John Wayne, so why do they want me ?)
One of us gets out of line and says no way...he’s joining the army.
A friend of mine from the hood sticks his head in the door, sees me and asks hey Dxxx what are you doing in here?
The 2nd Lt. goes into a drill instructor voice and says hey you get in here and stand next to him.
He does and we take the oath. Too Funny. I was with him up to VN then we got separated.
On the flight to MCRD San Diego boot camp, i gets to talking with the guy next to me and I tell him I was was drafted and I asked him about his enlistment...he tells me “The judge said...” again too funny.
Too funny was over cause then came the yellow footprints...
It has been correctly pointed out to me that we had Service Numbers, not serial numbers… Must be getting old to have made that mistake!
We had a draftee join us in Echo company 2/1, early in ‘67 and we didn’t believe him - but he was living proof that the Marine Corps was actually taking draftees! We found that to be crazy, since in our view, that wasn’t any place for anyone but volunteers.
Sad that the Corps resorted to that system, but our draftee was a fine Marine for us.