Vietnam Era Selective Service

[GPCharles]

The other thread got me to thinking about my own selective service experience during the Vietnam era. I took my physical in early 1972 at a building just off Gratiot near the Bat Lounge, but I don't remember the street names. They called down the low 50 numbers or so from both Grosse Pointe boards along with some others, but a lot of guys from the GP boards knew each other, mostly being in the same high school class. The draft physical was a real cattle call, with everyone trying to cheat their way out of a 1A classification, i.e sugar under the finger nails to put into the urine specimen, screwing around during the hearing test, messing up the written exam, etc. After the physical. many of us adjourned to the Bat Lounge before heading back to college.
Fortunately, there was a draft moratorium for the 1st half of the year and then the All-Volunteer Army kicked in and the draft was cancelled. Thank goodness, as I had a single digit number.

[oladub]

I was Vietnam era and went to take my draft physicals at Fort Wayne. I was there three times. The building was truly historic with old brick and tall skinny windows. As you noted, there was some cheating going on but by both sides. I noted several partly filled urine samples in the little bottles in the bathroom stall and wondered what that was about. They accumulated trays of perhaps a hundred samples and then dropped a cage of litmus strips into them and pulled them right out. I was told later that they should have kept the litmus samples in much longer to detect what they were allegedly looking for. We walked around for a few hours from room to room for various tests in our underpants, shoes and socks with a small paper bag for our personal processions like car keys and wallet. Presumably, some potential draftees also had as you mentioned had sugar or perhaps even pills in those bags. Homosexuality was draft deferrable. They had us line up in four lines in one room sans underpants and had lines one and two and three and four face each other for some minutes. Staffers walked between the lines looking for something. I wondered if that was to screen out anyone who was sexually excited by other guys.

At the end of the tests, we were individually sent to at least two rooms. The room I was sent to was just like the one where Arlo Guthrie was sent in Alice's Restaurant with a lot of overweight guys and bad acne cases. It was like going to heaven instead of Vietnam. I was scheduled for another physical to see if I was crazy and a couple of other things.

At my next Fort Wayne physical, it was determined that I had a "deranged clavicle". It was one of those things like Trump's bone spurs that allowed us to volunteer but they could not draft us. I noticed the Ann Arbor charter Greyhound outside. Everyone getting off had a pile of paperwork. I assumed they were credentials and doctors records. It was the black guys from Detroit, the small town white kids, and the working class kids who didn't know how to play the system who got drafted.

Somewhere along the way, and I don't remember how this fit in, I had volunteered to serve a third year in the Army in return for carpentry training school. My test scores had qualified me for any sort of training. I wore throw away clothes and my father drove me to Fort Wayne and we said our goodbyes. A very brief physical was given so it must have been after my first physical. I made it as far as sitting down with the Sergeant to review my paperwork and sign in. I noticed though that instead of 'carpentry school' there was something like 'career specialties'. Included in the list of specialties was carpentry but also "construction engineering assistant' which I interpreted as laborer. I told the Sergeant that it would have to be changed to 'carpentry school' before I would sign anything. He told me that I would most likely get carpentry school. I didn't buy that. He then pointed out the classroom full of guys who had already signed up that day implying everyone else signed their papers as if conformity was appealing. So I showed up back home that night with a determination that I would not comply with those liars and became a lot less likely to vote for the political party that promoted the draft. Thank you Nixon for offering much higher pay and ending involuntary servitude.

I did receive a draft lottery number that would have kept me out but that was later. I found a staticy AM radio station from Pittsburgh that carried the first draft lottery. I was proud of one black guy from Detroit who, when it was his turn to pull a numbered ball out of the lottery canister, refused to do so and said a few unkind words about Vietnam and making a game out of it. If anyone knows the guy, tell him he is remembered.

Sorry for going long here but this is history I wanted to record and I remembered that last year the Democratic House of Representatives passed language expanding Carter's draft registration to include women. That measure was quietly scuttled in the Senate's version of the Defense budget.

[jiminnm]

Like oladub, I also took my draft physical at Fort Wayne. It was June 1970, a month or so after graduating from WSU.

At the end, I and about a dozen other guys were sent to a room similar to what oladub described. Without any further explanation, we were all told we were being classified as 1-Y [[temporary physical deferment) and that in about 6 months we would be called back for a follow up physical.

Given the lack of any stated physical defects, I sometimes wonder if that may have a little antiwar protest by the doctors. From the guys I spoke to, we all had documented some form of physical issue, but none that appeared serious enough to exclude us from the draft.

Since the war already winding down, I never heard anything more form the Selective Service. A while later, I found out that everyone who had been classified 1-Y was reclassified to 4-F [[not qualified for military service).

[Pat001]

After my college deferment expired in 1972 I was reclassified 1-A. My draft lottery number was over 300, so I never heard from the draft board after that.

[RGK20m3]

I turned 18 in March, 1973. I remember going to someplace on Fort St, being interviewed and a minor physical. I was classified 1H, because the draft was suspended. I remember it being pretty casual and not crowded. Random sequence number was 35. I didn’t have any qualms about going, but would rather stay home. I think I received a letter when I was 26 saying that I no longer was eligible for draft.

[lpg]

I registered for the draft in Melvindale in 1967. I was called for a physical in March 1968 at Fort Wayne. A group of maybe 50. Half filled out paperwork, the other half started the physicals. Shorts and shoes with the windows open. I remember one guy who was a huge football player passing out when he had blood drawn. We had to drag him over to a chair. What a cattle call. Part way through we were lined up along the walls of a large room. A Marine officer came in and asked if anyone was interested in joining the Marines. No one moved, so he went along the line and picked every 4th guy to be in the Marines. A couple guys tried to move and he saw them. They were all selected. He said that if you screwed up in basic just to try to get out, you would be put on a bus to a Army base to complete basic. A couple of guys tried to alter their paperwork to get out. I was recalled for another physical a year later. Was classified 1Y. Never heard from them again.

[Henry Whalley]

In those days, I used to say "I regret that I only have one draft to dodge for my country."

[CassTechGrad]

1969 at Fort Wayne, one thing I remember was the last thing we did was to take the oath. We were all lined up and an officer told us to raise our right hand and recite the “oath of enlistment” with him. After completing the oath, we are to take one step forward and we will then officially be in the army. At that point some guys refused and they were taken away, I wonder what happened to them?

[canuck]

In those days, I used to say "I regret that I only have one draft to dodge for my country."

Among the things that young men obsessed over in those days were dodging the draft and dragging the Dodge!

[Danny]

My dad was drafted into U.S. Army in 1966. Served in Vietnam. Came back a mess. But he recovered.

Our U.S. Armed Forces is supposed to served OUR COUNTRY Not theirs just to kill commies!

[Jimaz]

...At that point some guys refused and they were taken away, I wonder what happened to them?...

Leavenworth?

[Henry Whalley]

...Came back a mess. But he recovered.

Danny, I'm glad to hear that your dad recovered. Most Nam era vets whom I met were disturbed but never recovered. After high school, I viewed my classmates who volunteered as bat shit crazy. Many came back drug-addicted or slowly dying from Agent Orange poisoning.

Footnote: IMHO we were there for the opium -- it was an Opium War waged by Americans against Americans.

Lastly, the Generation Gap was one of the saddest things about the 1960s. Kids couldn't understand why their parents supported the war -- which alienated them from their parents. Family trust was fractured. The stupidest saying was "don't trust anyone over thirty."

In the present day, the fracture has matured into simply "don't trust anyone." So, IMHO the Nam era broke our trust beyond repair.

[GPCharles]

Best draft/army story I ever heard.

Guy graduates from college in 1969, loses his student deferment and gets classified 1A. Gets drafted into the army. They worked on him non-stop to go to OCS but he declined. Two and out was enough for him. Goes to basic and gets shipped out to Vietnam. More training. The afternoon before his unit is to deploy into the bush he gets called into the Division's HQ to talk to the commanding general. A general and two colonels in the room and they are reviewing his personnel file. General says "I see you edited your college yearbook." Draftee says "Yes sir, for two years." General says "Great, we need an editor for our division newspaper and yearbook [[or whatever it was called). You are being reassigned immediately to HQ to work on the newspaper and edit and publish our yearbook."
Becomes an REMF and about 1 year later, two trips to Thailand and one trip to Japan to resolve photo and printing issues, the yearbook is complete and he's out and headed back to the USA.

[canuck]

Best draft/army story I ever heard.

Guy graduates from college in 1970, loses his student deferment and gets classified 1A. Gets drafted into the army. They worked on him non-stop to go to OCS but he declined. Two and out was enough for him. Goes to basic and gets shipped out to Vietnam. More training. The afternoon before his unit is to deploy into the bush he gets called into the Division's HQ to talk to the commanding general. A general and two colonels in the room and they are reviewing his personnel file. General says "I see you edited your college yearbook." Draftee says "Yes sir, for two years." General says "Great, we need an editor for our division yearbook [[or whatever it was called). You are being reassigned immediately to HQ to edit and publish our yearbook."
Becomes an REMF and about 1 year later, two trips to Thailand and one trip to Japan to resolve photo and printing issues, the yearbook is complete and he's out and headed back to the USA.

A case of Saigon… Ooops, I mean Ho Chi Mihn City Hilton. That guy must have praised himself for adding that bit of info on his induction forms…

[birwood]

I turned 18 in February 1968 while I was a senior at Mackenzie, and registered for the draft. I was immediately classed 1-SH, High School deferment. End of March, 1st part of April I was reclassified 1-A...what do I do now? I called my Dads brother who retired from the Army after 25 years and he advised to check all the branches and find a job classification I may like and enlist and do my best to score high on the aptitude tests and medical exams, because if I'm drafted, I'm going to be put somewhere to fill a void, so I did. I chose the USAF and left from Ft. Wayne on Jefferson, July 14, 1968 and became an aircraft mechanic on large B-52 bombers and KC-135 tanker aircraft. Although I did a tour in S.E.A. I was fortunate to do what I was trained for, fix broke airplanes. Follow a career in DFD, I'm now back using a skill I learned in 1968, fixing broke airplanes at Willow Run Airport.

[beachboy]

1970 - Dad wanted me to get "some kind of deferment", so I attended college ... then, lottery #327 ... lucky, and to this day I give thanks. Many classmates went to Vietnam, some returned - a few badly damaged. Sweet kids from farms and small towns. Broken trust? Nah ... broken country [still is ...] with authoritarian fools training nice young folks to be serial murderers. The whole mess run by suicide pilots. Miserere nobis ...

[Jimaz]

Hair - Let the Sunshine In