Text 29693, 91 rader
Skriven 2012-06-15 06:08:57 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
  Kommentar till text 29665 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Vietnam
===============
14 Jun 12 07:42, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

 RB>>> Just for the record, I was examined and classified for military
 RB>>> service (the "draft") in 1962.

 RW>> That's odd.

 RW>> Were you notified to appear at an examining facility at age 21?

 RB> That was from memory, but I know the examination and classification
 RB> took place in Boston and I went to MIT in September 1962, so it must
 RB> have been that year, and yes, I was 21 then (or going on 21).

So you hadn't begun a grade average yet. During the ensuing years, a
college student had to maintain a grade level above average to remain out
of the draft.

 RB>  I still have the draft card somewhere, but haven't seen it in years.

I burnt mine when I was 45...two years past draft age.

 RB>>> The first classification was 1-A (fit for service),

 RW>> I was classified as 1-A when I registered for the draft at age 18
 RW>> ... a belated high school graduation present.

 RB> I just started college at 18, in the fall of 1959.

Ug...I was working a low paying job as a machine operator around that
time. If I didn't have vocational machine shop in HS, I would probably
have been pumping gas or bagging groceries.

 RB> But perhaps they weren't examining people to classify them fot the
 RB> draft at that time, or weren't doing it if the person in question was
 RB> already in college (at least in Texas, where I first went to
 RB> college). I just don't know.

I don't remember much of world activity from 1959-60, but I do recall that
there wasn't any Viet Nam war going on, for us anyway. When it did appear
we were in So Viet Nam, we were advising the South, not participating.

 RB>>> later 2-S (deferred) because I was studying at MIT.

 RW>> I was later classified as 3-A (23yo), as most Tool & Die Apprentices
 RW>> are classified.  Upon graduation, (1966 for me) they're classified
 RW>> as 4-A, since T&D makers are/were always needed in defense jobs
 RW>> during times of military actions.

 RW>> 4-A is exempt from the draft for that reason.

 RB> Vital industries, I know. My dad was exempted (in WWII) for the same
 RB> reason, as he worked in the oil industry and was considered in a
 RB> "vital occupation".

 RB>>> By the time I graduated, people my age (24, going on 25) were no
 RB>>> longer being drafted,

 RW>> Interesting. A one year (1965) T&D Journeyman (age 25) and friend of
 RW>> mine was drafted because he was given a deferral when he entered the
 RW>> T&D program a year before I did. Getting married before graduating
 RW>> didn't help him avoid the draft either. He was lost in Viet Nam
 RW>> during his first patrol...

 RB> Poor guy. The different experience may also have something to do with
 RB> the draft boards, since I understood they had some leeway about their
 RB> decisions. Possibly I was just lucky.

Possibly your grade average was high enough to make them leave you alone.

 RB>>> but I still asked for and received permission from the draft board
 RB>>> to leave the country before I came to Germany.

 RW>> I never bothered, as I was already 26, married w/2 kids and working
 RW>> for Boeing (w/a Secret level clearance), which meant that I would
 RW>> still be classified as 4-A or possibly 5-A if I had...

 RB> Well, all that's history now, thank heaven.

I certainly wouldn't want to live it again.


                R\%/itt



... besides, IMNSHO, Ward Dossche should resign as ZC2 and surrender his
... net node-number to the ZCC !            - Cato the Elder -


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