Plan B Forum

On this day (August 16) in 1968, I was inducted into the United States Army.

The day was planned by the Army to be the longest day of our lives. It started very early in the morning at the induction station in Pittsburgh. During that first day we underwent several examinations, took some sort of an oath, filled out a ton of forms, stood in a lot of endless lines, and waited aimlessly for who knew what? In the early evening we were bussed out to Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, where we took a commercial flight to Atlanta, then were bussed to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Although we arrived there around midnight, processing of new recruits never ended, and we filled out forms, took tests, got our uniforms, some shots, ate a couple of meals, and continued "processing" until - as I recall - about midnight of that first "day," some 40 hours or so after we had first arrived at the induction center in Pittsburgh.

That night, sleeping soundly in our new Army underwear and on 50-year-old cots, we were awakened at 2am to go through a fire drill, during which we had to crawl in the sand and mud under the barracks for a few minutes, then return to "bed."

"Don't even THINK about taking a shower, Shit-head!!!"

Reveille at 6am, started our first "real" day of Basic Training.

Ah, that was the life.

After 10 weeks at Fort Jackson, I moved to Fort Lee, Virginia, where I declined to pursue my chosen military career in "Stock Control and Accounting," in favor of a year as a PFC in Personnel, filling out Morning Reports for the training brigade. Then to the United States Military Academy Preparatory School (Ft Belvoir, VA) for the two weeks it took me to get out of it, six months in a holding company, then over to Vietnam for some fun in the sun.

I was one of the REMF's in Vietnam, serving as a personnel sergeant for a year or so, then a bartender in the Commanding General's Mess in Danang for my last few months before shipping back home. My Army-issue rifle was red with rust when I removed it from my closet in Danang - didn't make me very popular with the guys in the supply office when I turned it in.

My unit in Vietnam had five casualties during the time I was there, four of them self-inflicted, and the fifth was a poor SOB who just happened to be taking a shit when his outhouse was struck by a stray VC rocket. There was not enough of a body to make a positive ID, and when I left RVN he was officially classified as "Missing In Action." I was privy to a number of letters written by his mother to the Commanding General, demanding to know why they weren't sending out patrols to locate her "missing" son.

Truly, a lifetime ago.

Who was that guy?

Draft lottery no. 352.


Thanks for you service, dgs.

Thanks for you service, dgs.

X2 Dave

If we ever get into another serious war we are screwed. I don’t know we could defend ourselves against Mexico. We have too many “hell no we want go”. And "Hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today”.

Perhaps if your country had not chosen to engage in so many wars of dubious merit and/or morality, people might have retained a greater sense of obligation to enter into military service.

Ouch!!

There was nothing dubious about resisting the communist; true it was costly in money, lives and the mental stability of some of our warriors, but we won in the end and saved the world from slavery thanks to Ronald Reagan.

Sure. Raping nuns and assassinating archbishops was necessary to overthrow communism.

Ah, what a flashback, Dave.

"...you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected."

FWIW, I am a strong opponent of the "All-Volunteer Army," and believe that the U.S. must one day reinstate the draft.

Fighting wars has become something that "other people" have to do, while we fret about how it might affect our taxes.

There is no fucking way that the U.S. would have tolerated all these years in Iraq and Afghanistan if the sons of our friends, neighbors, and relatives were getting shot up. But we can "live with it," because they are all "volunteers."

Don't get me started.

dgs49 wrote:There is no fucking way that the U.S. would have tolerated all these years in Iraq and Afghanistan if the sons of our friends, neighbors, and relatives were getting shot up.

Which would be seen by a perceptive person as an indictment of the decision to wage those wars, and the way they were waged.

Although I do not presume to know all of the factors that led up to those decisions, knowing what I think I do know, I would not have put American soldiers on the ground in either of those two god-forsaken countries.

Scooter wrote:Sure. Raping nuns and assassinating archbishops was necessary to overthrow communism.

"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over".

"War is at its best barbarism".

"War is hell".

Well, using your idea of war, just nuke the basturds!

Confuscious say; "It is better to buy a draught excluder, than to curse the draft..."

dales wrote:Well, using your idea of war, just nuke the basturds!

Sherman was a bastard but he was not saying that in as much as he was saying that war is the devil’s playground and if you had one all kinds of bad stuff happens and there is no sense in trying to prevent it.

Except by choosing not to launch unnecessary, fruitless wars in the first place, or to support bloodthristy dictators who do.

Lord Jim wrote:

Thanks for you service, dgs.

X2 Dave

X3

Thank you for your service dgs49. I was too young for Nam. I happen to be one of those chosen few who were born in the years that we weren't drafted and did not have to sign up for hte selective service. (1957 -1959 IIRC, I was born in1958). My son, born in 1985 had to sign up to selective service in order to be eligeable for student grants for college.