Tell me about THE DRAFT

[Jack_Dawson]

I was about 2 or 3 during our last draft. I heard that they did it by birthdays. So was the whole nation tuning into some kind of reverse psychology Powerball where you were hoping the right numbers DIDN'T come up? Was it done on live TV or announced in the paper? Were people majorly stressing out? How many birthdays did they end up drafting?

I would welcome any stories, short or long.

Thx,

JD

[Infomaniac]

1. My husband

My husband was subject to the draft lottery in 1970. He has trouble remembering anniversaries and birthdays, but no trouble at all recalling his number. 302.

This website might help give you some more background.

http://www.landscaper.net/draft.htm

[Jack_Dawson]

2. Wow - interesting site, Thanks

[Hubert Flottz]

5. Mine was 136 and I was drafted in January of 70!

It SUCKED!

[vetwife]

3. It starts out GREETINGS:

Goes pretty much downhill from there !

I don't mean to be flip but if a draft was reinstituted, it would not be the same. They will take any warm body now. There won't be I believe a 1A or 4F..4 F being unfit physically or not able to serve. 1 A is You are what we need ! You have to register at 18 and it used to depend on marital status, kids, school. I don't think any of that will apply now.

[Paranoid_Portlander]

14. I think 1-A and 4-F still exist...

... if a draft is reinstated, but the old 1-Y has been eliminated, which meant draftable only if a formal war is declared or a national emergency. 1-Y men were not drafted into the Vietnam war.

[Peregrine]

4. Number 204, here

That was in 73 (which I think was the last lottery), and the draft actually had ended two years earlier.

It was a big television event, every 18 year old male was tuned in. In the begining the first birth date they drew was #1, then on down to #365.

Then to spice it up, they used two drums. One for the birth date and the other for the draft number. A big Nielsen success, kept everybody in suspense for the whole evening.

My next door neighbor in the dorm was #1. One day he receive a notice reclassifying him 1A and said if he wanted to refute that, he had to show up at the draft board for a physical. But the funny thing was, the day after he got the draft letter, the Yom Kippur War broke out and the newspaper headlines read, "US NUCLEAR FORCES PLACED ON ALERT." We had alot of fun with him that day.

[Dems Will Win]

6. I got a CO

then I got a number over 300!

[Jack_Dawson]

7. What's that?

[Panda1]

9. It stands for...

..Conscientious Objector.
My father wrote a book in 1970 called "A Doctor's Guide to the Draft" that was a national bestseller. It outlined the military's own medical reasons for deferment. He saved hundreds of young guys from the draft at his medical office, but also brought the FBI down on his back for years and made Nixon's enemies list.
There were numerous ways to avoid the draft through medical reasons and there still are. From Osgood Schlatters Disease(quite common) to Varicocele which is hard to disprove. If Cyst Boy got out....so can you. I'm not allowing my sons to go. No way.
I knew many guys who got low numbers in the lottery...one immediately joined the Navy rather than get drafted to be blown up by a Bouncing Betty. Those who got high numbers still worried that they would be called on at a later date.
I also know some guys who died over there and many who came back missing limbs. Those who made it back, whether they lost a limb or not, were forever changed by the horrors of war.

[Panda1]

10. Another site for you...

http://www.sss.gov/viet.htm
HOW THE DRAFT HAS CHANGED SINCE VIETNAM
If a draft were held today, it would be dramatically different from the one held during the Vietnam War. A series of reforms during the latter part of the Vietnam conflict changed the way the draft operated to make it more fair and equitable. If a draft were held today, there would be fewer reasons to excuse a man from service.

Before Congress made improvements to the draft in 1971, a man could qualify for a student deferment if he could show he was a full-time student making satisfactory progress toward a degree.
....
A draft held today would use a lottery to determine the order of call.
Before the lottery was implemented in the latter part of the Vietnam conflict, Local Boards called men classified 1-A, 18 1/2 through 25 years old, oldest first. This resulted in uncertainty for the potential draftees during the entire time they were within the draft-eligible age group. A draft held today would use a lottery system under which a man would spend only one year in first priority for the draft - either the calendar year he turned 20 or the year his deferment ended. Each year after that, he would be placed in a succeedingly lower priority group and his liability for the draft would lessen accordingly. In this way, he would be spared the uncertainty of waiting until his 26th birthday to be certain he would not be drafted.

[Carla in Ca]

8. If * is (re)elected, you'll find out for yourself

n/t

[rexcat]

11. My draft number was 18 in 1971...

The lottery was published in the newspaper Mid-August 1971, two weeks later I got my draft physical notice, then in two weeks I was taking my draft physical (the first day of classes for college). I ended up joining the Air Force October 12, 1971. I went delayed enlistment and went active duty February 22, 1972 and was honorably discharged on December 23, 1975. It is amazing I can still remember these dates and numbers.

The problem I had was my dad was retired from the Air Force. He was a fighter pilot. My options were extremely limited!

[mark414]

12. my dad and two uncles had numbers

the rest of my aunts and uncles always tell me stories about how my grandmother was absolutely LOCKED to the tv, scared as hell that possibly 3 of her sons might have to go to vietnam...luckily none of them got drafted, so i'm here today!

i turn 20 in march, so if a draft is re-instated i've got a damn good chance of going. i'm completely healthy and do not have nor have ever had anything physically wrong with me. my mother told me to hit on the draft board if i do get called up however...haha

[AntiFascist]

13. It turned conservatives into activists....

I was 9 or 10 at the time, my brother was draft age but he had various medical excuses for getting out of it. My parents were staunch Republicans, but they finally saw the light and became concerned about my brother's friends and classmates going off to war and dying. I remember one weekend my father brought home typewriters from his office so that he and my mother could write letters to congressmen, and they spent all day doing that.

[knowbody0]

15. the draft

back in the day-everyone without a diferment was drafted. (i graduated in '66. so you could delay getting drafted by going to college for a while. they called it random by birth date, but everyone was drafted. they aggressively recruit now in the high schools, but they have sunk to a new low. my 12 year old's weekend assignment was to create a poster encouraging people to join the military. it was suggested the girls show how attracted they were to men in uniform. these are strange days

[Blue Wally]

16. I came of age in the fifities

You registered when you were 18, but they didn't call you until 22 or 23. That way, the deferred college students were available and they got around the problems caused by student deferrments. Lot of guys got married and had kids before they turned 22 since that was a surefire way out of the draft (kids not wives). Employers didn't want to take you on until you had "finished your military obligation" so that drove a lot of 18 and 19 year olds to volunteer for three years (Army and USMC) or four years (Navy and USAF) to get it over with and to get away from a menial job. Having the draft waiting for you when you finished college also spurred enrollment in ROTC (better two years as a 2LT than two years as a PFC). Because so very few of us were born in the 1930s, deferrments were just that, temporary deferrals of serving. Just about everyone wore the uniform except those who became fathers before getting called. I was 24 years old when I was told to report for a physical. Whoops, somebody dropped the ball since I was on active duty as a 1LT at Fort Hood at the time.

[Infomaniac]

17. My BIL's story

My BIL's story is one I've heard him tell several times. His college didn't send his deferment in and he received an induction notice. His parents were staunch Republicans and were very friendly with their Congressman who was unable to intervene on BIL's behalf. BIL showed up for his induction physcial. BIL had always had very bad vision, which he hoped would disqualify. "Nope." said the doctor, "We'll give you a dozen pairs of glasses." BIL also took a hearing test, which he failed. Apparently, BIL also has a condition called non-directional hearing. The doctor said, "Son. You can't see where the bullets are coming from and you can't hear where they're coming from. I can't send you into the army." And with that BIL was classified 4-F.

[doc03]

18. I was drafted in the spring of 68, this was before the lottery. Unless you

had a deferment for school or your daddy could get a medical excuse from one of his Country Club buddies everyone got a notice within a few days of their 19th birthday. I had some friends that tried to get into the reserves but there was a 1 year or more waiting list at the time. I got my notice when I turned 19 to report for induction I was bussed to Columbus, OH and I passed the physical and was in Fort Jackson that evening. I was lucky and never went to Vietnam, but you know I have always felt a little guilty for not going to Vietnam. After I got out I was called up the next summer to go for Reserve training, I'll tell you this I didn't have much respect for the Reservists. I'm sure all of them weren't privileged but a lot of them I met where sons of GM VP's, politicians and the like. There were a a few that signed up for the Reserves as soon as they got out of High School and were lucky enough to get in before they got the draft notice.

[Panda1]

19. Well...

...I guess this absolutely proves to me that nobody ever reads my posts. I'll go back to just reading. My father never belonged to a country club but was just a Liberal Internist who took his oath to save lives when he could seriously. For his troubles then, and further Liberal activism he was persecuted by the FBI for decades. He saw many patients for free who couldn't afford a routine office visit fee. ($10-$25 at the time) Also, he heard from numerous men/boys from around the country who never saw a doctor prior to their draft physical but presented with "symptoms" ascertained from his book and received deferments. Many of them were from "poor" backgrounds too. They were simply anti-war.

I'm sorry your experience wasn't as pleasant but you shouldn't feel guilty because you weren't sent to Vietnam. You would either be dead, maimed, mentally impaired, or forever haunted by your memories of that horrific war. Only those who WANT to go to war should be sent IMO.

[doc03]

22. I got drafted in 1968 before your father wrote his book. I really never

tried to get out of the draft I was 19 and foolishly thought it was
our duty to serve our country. I never dreamed of trying to get out because of a boil on my ass like fathead Rush. Hey, that's why they try to get you while you're young and stupid! I had two friends that
were raised on a farm and didn't have the money to go to college so they volunteered for the draft and went to school on the GI bill after doing their time.

[Panda1]

23. I'm sorry, I didn't mean you personally,

this place is such a huge zoo I don't often post. And my father died on July 4th at exactly 9:11pm after a stellar Liberal, brilliant life well-lived, so I suppose I'm a bit sensitive lately.
I apologize.

He was shunned by many in the medical community, who are mostly Republican, for his activities on behalf of draftees from around 1967 on. Only after he did all the research and published his book did the FBI start coming around. The irony is that he actually saw some of the sons of these same physicians, sent to him by their mothers. They hounded him again during the Reagan years and filed false charges against him, after which he wrote another book entitled "Undue Process" about his court experiences.

To be a Liberal with a big mouth has never been a safe activity in this country. As a family we found this out the hard way. Freedom of speech has always been a risky business. That's what makes Kerry's actions all the more brave and remarkable. Nobody wanted to hear that stuff. We didn't want to know about the REALITY of war. We were being told "love it or leave it" and now we're getting that same treatment. Only this time, we, of the Vietnam Generation have the children they want to get their hands on. Things have changed.

1968 was a tumultuous year. We were torn. Only rabid news hounds were aware at the time of what was happening in Vietnam. "The silent majority" belonged to Nixon. I was in the minority at my high school for wearing peace signs. I wasn't old enough to vote, nor were you, remember? (You had to be 21 to vote until 1971)You could be sent to war but not vote or drink. The climate hadn't yet turned. The Tet offensive didn't happen until 1968....people still were kept in the dark. Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for re-election. There weren't enough body bags to have "convinced" the public yet....just as there aren't now. We had Nixon for gawd's sake. And people VOTED for him. I DID know guys who enlisted. Some of them didn't come home. The ones who did and took advantage of the GI Bill for the most part wouldn't talk about Vietnam. Only in the early 70s did the silence start to break and vets actually went public in significant numbers. Then, as now, we had a news "freeze" with the exception of overseas papers such as the Guardian. In Europe, as is the case now, they knew the truth sooner than Americans. Americans believed the Bay of Tonkin lies as told by U.S. media. Europe did not buy it. We had Walter Cronkite giving "numbers" every night and that was about it. The rest was propaganda. The similarities are striking except that NOW we have the internet.

Since we now have Reservists being forced to stay on active duty and troops going AWOL from Iraq I fear the worst. I have two draftable sons. One has already been signed up with Selective Service, as required by law, for almost two years and the other must sign up in just over a year. The older of the two is attending college but got a recruitment call the other day from a Sgt. Flores.

I have sent for the paperwork to join my local selective service board since they are now actively recruiting again. Those who think there won't be a draft, well, I hope they're right but things are getting worse all over the world, not better and we've already used all our volunteer troops and extended their tours. What if the BFEE decides to attack Iran next or N. Korea decides to catch us with our pants down. Draft? You bet.

So when this young man posted for information about the draft, it brought all of it flooding back to many of us I'm sure. I have two sons I'm living it too but from another perspective this time. Then it was my contemporaries, boyfriends etc. Now it's my offspring.

I'd like to think there won't be a draft but I'd also like to think that the economy doesn't force poor young guys to enlist as their only way to get a job, as appears to be the case now in the south. Either way it all sucks and was not necessary. This war with Iraq did NOT need to happen. They were NO threat to us. Now the whole world hates our guts and would just love to kill our kids.

[Elginoid]

20. there isn't going to be a draft.

with the economy locked in the toilet, there'll be more than enough volunteers.

[Catshrink]

21. My nephew would have been #1 if he'd been of age.