General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 1968 (Your Help, Please!) [View all]kentuck
(111,111 posts)But I was working in Detroit, MI when I got my draft notice. That was the summer of '66. I had just turned 19. I went thru basic at Fort Campbell, KY.
There were no lottery numbers at that time. There was college or there were little tricks, like lye soap under the armpit or such, that could get you out of serving. Or pull a Ted Nugent-like trick.
I never questioned serving. My uncles had served in the Korean War - one had won the Silver Star. In the mountains, when your country called, you went.
There was a sense of inevitability that I was going to Vietnam. Some little voice in the back of my mind told me that I would get to see the South China Sea.
As I was flying into Fort Lewis, Washington, on my way to Vietnam, my parents were in the process of getting a divorce. So I remember thinking of that a lot.
When I was drafted, I was fairly innocent and naive, to be honest.
Although I was an excellent student, I was very poor and still living in the hollow when my teachers took me down to Union College to check it out in my senior year of high school. But I did not want to go to college without any money and no job, so I went to Detroit to work and make a little money. That is when I got my draft notice.
I came back to my home in the hollow for a few weeks before I had to go to Fort Campbell for basic training. I recall that I put my changing of clothes in a paper sack and walked out of the hollow in the dark to get to the station on time for the bus.