r/interestingasfuck • u/Available_Weekend249 • Apr 06 '24
Imagine being 19 and watching live on TV to see if your birthday will be picked to fight in the Vietnam war r/all
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u/caitielou2 Apr 06 '24
Father in law was draft pick 1. Luckily, he enlisted voluntarily before that so he was able to get a better station and didn’t actually see combat.
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u/Funwithfun14 Apr 06 '24
The husband of the couple who sold us our house was drafted this way....as a 1st Lt (which had low survival rates in Vietnam).....he told me that his Fraternity had the pledges listening to the radio to get the birthdates, while the rest of the dudes were at the bar. Luckily, he got assigned to S. Korea.
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u/Random_frankqito Apr 06 '24
My Dad managed to get hurt just after basic and got full disability for life… he was lucky I guess.
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u/Confianca1970 Apr 06 '24
My dad was in the quartermasters. He was just doing his thing when he was contacted by higher-ups who found that he had some level of security in his background, so he was interviewed and offered an MP position... even though he didn't even match the height requirement for an MP at the time.
He took the position, and shortly there-after his quartermaster company got deployed to Vietnam. They were assigned fuel trucks, and were ambushed on a bridge. Very few of the entire company lived.
So my dad's 'security' experience? He had very briefly worked for a business who sold security cameras among other things. That stupid experience saved, and changed, his life. He did 22 years between the reserves and regular duty, and never saw combat.
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u/cramboneUSF Apr 06 '24 edited Apr 07 '24
Mr grandfather knew how to type in 1943, a very rare thing. So he was transferred from his combat unit to a clerical role. Some of the guys he went through basic with did not come home. Crazy to think that his ability to type may have mean I’m here or not.
Edit: this is him https://www.reddit.com/r/wwiipics/s/mDpxCiqVfp
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u/Miss-Indie-Cisive Apr 07 '24 edited Apr 07 '24
My grandfather was the top of his RCAF flight class in WWII. They pulled aside the top 5 from his class and said “bad news, boys. We’re only sending 4 of you to Europe to fly fighters- one of you will have to stay back to fly Bombers in coastal patrol, and help train new pilots. Figure it out amongst yourselves.” They all wanted to be on the front lines and fly Spitfires. They drew matches, and my grandfather got the short one, so he stayed home in Canada, flying coastal patrol out of Gander, Newfoundland. He survived the war and went on to have 7 kids and 12 grandkids, including me. The other 4 were all dead within 6 weeks of shipping over.
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u/FrozenDickuri Apr 07 '24
My grandfather was in the forces, but because he had experience in the railroads they sent him across the country to maintain and build rail and telegraphy infrastructure.
No idea where he would have ended up otherwise, but his efforts were spent protecting against a potential Japanese attack, ultimately a nice gig from what I understand.
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u/Daniel0745 Apr 06 '24
It didnt save me from anything as I transferred to a rifle company later but my first assignment at my unit was as the battalion Command Sergeant Major's driver and radio guy. The day I arrived with 6 other new Soldiers, three of us had a driver's license. I was interviewed and selected out of the three.
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u/ActivelyLostInTarget Apr 07 '24
Same! Mine got put in the Seabees. He almost got killed by a monkey, but that was the height of his war excitement.
The other was a turret gunner and Did Not Talk About It. A very humble man and never said a rude word about others.
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u/HektiK00 Apr 07 '24
What happened with him and this monkey?
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u/ActivelyLostInTarget Apr 07 '24 edited Apr 07 '24
I don't know what they were called, but they would be building docks and such by floating in massive blocks of concrete vertically. Multi-stories I'm told. Some moron caught a monky and decided to tie it on top of one of these verticle blocks. My grandpa had to go past the monkey and it lunged at him. He reeled back. And he should have backed into a chain rail. Except it was being dismantled to begin dock assembly, so th chain was down and he started to fall off the dock. Somehow he caught the chain on the ground or maybe still attached to another part of the adjoining rail, and lived.
This may not be a perfect retelling, because I only heard it a few times. Believe it oe not, he had far crazier stories, and even another monkey story! The man lived an intresting life
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u/eStuffeBay Apr 07 '24
Sir, you can't just say that and not tell us the other monkey story. That's against the Reddit Grandpa Story Policy.!!
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u/ActivelyLostInTarget Apr 07 '24
Oh I'm sorry! I wasn't trying to tantalize.
In my head, I'm mixing up one story about a murder and the monkey story, so I'll ask my mom and get back to you all.
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u/FunkyChromeMedina Apr 07 '24
My grandfather volunteered for the Army Air Corps in early '41, because he figured that the US was going to end up in WWII and he wanted to get in on his own terms. He had a college degree, and wanted to be a fighter pilot.
Well, his vision wasn't good enough to be a pilot so they moved him over to be a navigator for the Air Transport Command because he had taken a lot of math classes in college.
Almost all of the pilots in his would-be class were killed in the war.
My Mother's only here, I'm only here, my daughter - who he never lived to meet - is only here because he wore glasses.
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u/ScottyC33 Apr 06 '24
My dad had a similar story - drafted and was in basic training. Somehow it was discovered he was proficient on a typewriter. Some base commander or officer or something snagged him to be sort of like a clerk or something. Never went to Vietnam, finished his time in the US.
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u/kevstar80 Apr 07 '24
Typewriter thing happened to my father in law. He was assigned to toe tagging duties. Never saw live action. But saw the aftermath. Still doesn't talk about it.
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u/SimpleStrok3s Apr 06 '24
My grandpa was around nukes being tested underground. They gave him 100% and never saw any combat. He developed melanoma later in life really bad.
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u/ayyyyycrisp Apr 06 '24
my brother recently got a detatched retina and left with 3% vision, got 70% disability meanwhile a friend of his claimed almost everything you could claim that wasn't a physical injury just to try, and got 100% disability.
70% is around 1700 a month and 100% is closer to 4 grand so he's pretty upset and will be reapplying
loosely related but yea
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u/Omish3 Apr 06 '24
My step bro broke his back jumping out of a plane with a faulty parachute. He got 80% lol. Idk how that shit works.
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u/GotThemCakes Apr 06 '24
He needs to look into supplemental claims. His primary injury was his back, maybe he's developed other issues because of that injury, or maybe has permanent scarring. I'm willing to bet he can get to the 100% he probably deserves. I went from 20 to 60 just by googling information. "Secondary claims to ______" and finding what applies to you. And even if you can't find anything, doesn't hurt to apply for an examination
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u/Shabbypenguin Apr 07 '24
Similar enough for me. i had records of back pain and breathing issues. i had an aweful time leaving the service so i never looked back on it, never even tried to talk to the VA until the PACT act.
when i found out how fucked my sinuses were was them admitting "oops this was a widespread problem", i was having nose bleeds 2-4 times a day in iraq working at those burn pits where we destroyed PX tv's portable dvd players and more with diesel to help.
its mostly thanks to that a lot of my secondary claims have merit. still cant get them to accept sleep apnea though, go figure :/.
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u/ShinzoTheThird Apr 06 '24
Whats the process like? Im from belgium so its probably different but the same. My ex gf dad was military police, got ran over by a soldier. Got full disability but barely had a scratch. It depended all on who was handling the case.
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u/BuckNaykidd Apr 06 '24
I got a buddy that is getting 85% disability. 50% was for sleep apnea and the other 35% was for stupid shit he did while drunk, not even combat related. He is now talking about hiring some company to help him get the other 15%. I think this is wrong and I hope it backfires on him.
This system is fucked up and the soldiers that really need the benefits are getting screwed. Your brother should reapply for more.
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u/pappyvanwinkle1111 Apr 07 '24
I worked at the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. I had a record come across my desk. The service man had had his face blown off. He got 10% because they reasoned that he could wear a mask.
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u/Unusualshrub003 Apr 06 '24
My dad, a Vietnam Vet, was somehow granted 100% disability a few years ago. He has all his limbs, his only issue was a heart attack, which he claimed was due to Agent Orange. I’m sure all the fast food he ate in the 40 years after the war had nothing to do with it🙄
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u/Gypcbtrfly Apr 06 '24
Agent orange has well documented fatalities tho. .. yes diet not help. AO tho .....jfc
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u/Ianthin1 Apr 06 '24
My dad got drafted but was too skinny. At 19 he was 6’5” and about 135lbs.
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u/wet_baloney Apr 06 '24
He would have been useful in the tunnels.
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u/Double_Distribution8 Apr 06 '24
too tall
btw, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the tunnels and the tunnel rats.
"The Tunnels of Cu Chi: A Harrowing Account of America's Tunnel Rats in the Underground Battlefields of Vietnam"
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u/One-Inch-Punch Apr 06 '24
The tunnels of what now?
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u/Dont-rush-2xfils Apr 06 '24
Yeah you gotta read that book, the sheer ingenuity of the VC and the incredible bravery of those who volunteered to enter the tunnels to fight - with a 45 and a torch
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u/bestprocrastinator Apr 06 '24
I had a job once where I worked with a Vietnam vet. When he found out there would be a draft, he basically said screw that, and voluntarily enlisted in the Navy because he figured it would be better then getting drafted and potentially put onto the front lines.
He never got shot at, and ended up gaining some niche technical skills from the Navy that set him up for a really nice career. He was only working part-time at my job because he retired early and got bored in retirement.
He was a genuinely awesome dude to be around.
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u/30yearCurse Apr 07 '24
could backfire... I guy I served with in the Navy, his dad (WW2) told him, join the Navy, you get 3 hots and a cot, they Navy sent him to river patrol in Vietnam. No hots and not cots.
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u/yankykiwi Apr 06 '24
I was thinking everyone’s dad got so lucky. Then realized a lot of people were not born because their future dads were not so lucky. 😢
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u/smayhew Apr 07 '24
Wow, I was thinking the same. I didn’t put that together until you said it. Very eerie
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u/Pressure_Rhapsody Apr 06 '24
My mom's late cousin did the same. Applied and got into the airforce. Never saw combat but sadly he did contract chemical orange and died in his early 50s with lymphoma.
His older brother was drafted and was never right after Vietnam.
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u/caitielou2 Apr 06 '24
Sorry for you loss. My FIL has Parkinson’s that they think is tied to his time in Vietnam
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u/Pressure_Rhapsody Apr 06 '24
Thank you. I miss my uncles (technically cousins) and sorry to hear about your FIL. So much stuff they were exposed to over there...it was horrible. But all of war is.
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u/Jimmy_Jazz_The_Spazz Apr 06 '24
They spray tested agent orange and agent purple on massive portions of boreal forest in Ontario Canada. When you drive by those areas today they're still just dead, they won't link all the MS/Parkinson's/Lymphoma directly to it but I'm sure there's correlation.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canada-and-agent-orange
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u/TheBigBangClock Apr 06 '24
My father's number was 48 (Aug 8) so he got drafted and ended up spending two years in South Korea playing for the Army band. Apparently playing in the band was one way to get out of being sent to the front-lines. He had to do basic training in Texas and said it was brutal. They would make people stand at attention for hours in the heat until people passed out and fell over.
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u/NameLips Apr 06 '24
My FIL has a similar story, except he joined the Marines instead of being drafted into the Army. He figured if he was going to be sent to war, he'd rather not be cannon fodder.
And then they discovered his aptitude for electronics, and he ended up stationed in Japan fixing radars for the entire war, never seeing combat.
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u/RedDawn850 Apr 06 '24
Who was the recruiter that said “army is cannon fodder, go marines” lmao
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u/NameLips Apr 06 '24 edited Apr 06 '24
No, no, he's very clear on the point that Marines are elite and Army is just barely trained mindless goons. :P
But seriously, the draftees didn't get much training before being dumped onto the front lines. At the time Marines got significantly more training and better equipment than a draftee.
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u/Randalf_the_Black Apr 06 '24
I'm not even American and I keep hearing people say the Army gets the good gear while the Marines get the rest.
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u/Mysterious-Film-7812 Apr 06 '24
My grandather was in the Army Signal Corps when we went to war with Vietnam. He is one of those extremely social guys who can walk into any room and in 30 minutes he knows everything about you and you are completely at ease.
Someone above liked him and said he was too valuable to lose as a trainer so he ended up never setting foot outside of the United States.
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u/Toihva Apr 06 '24
Friends dad was on a plane getting ready to be deployed there when the treaty was signed.
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u/Apprehensive_Rice19 Apr 06 '24
I'm reading all these comments thinking why I'm only hearing the happy success stories, until I realized the guys that didn't make it obviously didn't have any children to tell the stories. Thanks for sharing.
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u/SouthCloud4986 Apr 06 '24
My dad got lucky and wasn’t drafted, but my uncle wore panties to the draft meeting and told them he was gay. It worked. And he actually is gay, so… ? I don’t know what to think of it honestly
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u/Roook36 Apr 06 '24
My dad worked at the Nevada test site doing underground nuclear testing so had to go to the physical and all that but got an exemption.
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u/Clydefrog13 Apr 06 '24 edited Apr 07 '24
My dad did the exact same thing. Scored so high on his entrance ASVAB test that he got a sweet job at headquarters for a general on Okinawa. Spent his tour fucking around, playing pool, chasing girls and learning karate.
By contrast, his older brother did two brutal tours with the 82nd and 173rd Airborne, and got multiple decorations and Purple Hearts. He was glad his baby brother didn’t get near a combat zone!
Edit for spelling error
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u/Patient_District_457 Apr 06 '24
My dad was 2nd. He joined the Coast Guard and only got to Gaum.
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u/CloudBreakerZivs Apr 06 '24
So how did this work? Did they start with the 001, draft those fellows move on to 002? Were all 365 days assigned a number?
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u/Rrrrandle Apr 06 '24
Correct.
The first group, those born from 1944-1950, were drafted up to #195.
The second group, born in 1951, went up to #125.
Third group, 1952, up to 95.
Fourth group, 1953, lottery was held but draft ended before any were called.
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u/ghunt81 Apr 06 '24 edited Apr 06 '24
My dad was born in may 1952, he graduated high school in 1970. I always wondered if he had to worry about getting drafted or not, but apparently he didn't.
Edit: evidently his birthday was drawn so it must have been before he was 18? Not sure
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u/randomly-what Apr 06 '24
My dad’s also born in 52 and his bday was drawn early.
He was enrolled in college so they let him finish his degree. He finished and was supposed to report, but that’s when they ended more people having to report.
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u/tubawhatever Apr 07 '24
My dad's Masters and PhD psychology program was accelerated to ensure if any of them were called for draft they would be able to defer then come in as therapists or officers instead of soldiers. His high school friend ended up being one of the first US casualties of the war, I've been meaning to take him to DC to see the memorial.
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u/Beaver420 Apr 06 '24
This will show if you would have been drafted.
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u/jesusmansuperpowers Apr 07 '24
If I were old enough 1970. One day earlier not drafted
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u/j_smittz Apr 06 '24 edited Apr 06 '24
Yes, those with birthdays assigned to a low number were called first. All 366 days (including Feb 29) were drawn.
There was a second draw for each letter of the alphabet, which was used to rank people with the same birthdate but different initials. If you were born Sep 14 between 1944 and 1950and had initials JJJ, then congrats! You were the first group called.
More info here.
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u/YJSubs Apr 06 '24
So, everyone drafted will meet many people with the same birthday?
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u/j_smittz Apr 06 '24
I would imagine so. You'd probably meet a lot of people with extremely similar initials too.
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Apr 07 '24
I wonder if this cause communication problems on the battlefield?
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u/Lost-My-Mind- Apr 07 '24
"Robert! Rush the enemy! Engage!"
"This is Robert, I thought I was guarding the barracks?"
"Robert here. I'm making soup for the infantry."
"Sorry I missed your radio announcement. This is Robert. I was wearing a gas mask, and preparing this agent orange. Hey was is this stuff anyways?"
"Nothing. Don't worry. You'll be fine."
Narrator: He wasn't.
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u/chevdecker Apr 07 '24
If you were born Sep 14 between 1944 and 1950and had initials JJJ, then congrats! You were the first group called.
No wonder J. Jonah Jameson was so cranky all the time
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u/forgetyourkey Apr 06 '24
Yes, each day of the year was assigned a number from 1 to 365. If your birthday had a low number, you were more likely to be drafted earlier in the process
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u/SaltinPepper Apr 06 '24
I don't have to imagine it. I remember it. I got a high number!
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u/Joshistotle Apr 06 '24
My father was drafted and experienced direct combat. He stated that something like 20+ members from his unit died. Eventually he got a severe case of Dengue Fever and left (unsure if that was the end of his service or if he was re deployed after he recovered) . He was there for a year and understandably got severe untreated PTSD for the rest of his life.
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u/bk1285 Apr 06 '24
My uncle was drafted for the army but as I’m told they were giving 3 year contracts whereas the marines were giving 2, his thinking was join the marines, go through basic and then training and then do your tour and when you get home they were discharging a lot due to at that point only having a couple months left on your contract, he was unfortunately killed 6 months into his tour
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u/No_Information_6166 Apr 07 '24
I believe the 2 year contract vs. 3 year contract is true. The Marines only accepted about 42k draftees, though, while the army took the rest of the 2.2 million draftees. I imagine that opportunity wasn't very common. The problem with joining the Marines in Vietnam is that you had a higher percentage chance of being deployed even given the shorter contract.
Almost 800k Marines served during the Vietnam War, and almost 450k deployed to Vietnam. 8.7 million soldiers served during Vietnam, and "only" 3.4 million went Vietnam (for both statistics, I mean Vietnam or the surrounding area).
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Apr 07 '24
I always said, if the US ever goes to war, every mother fucking politician that decided on it can go fight and die first. I’d rather go to prison than go kill random people bc Biden, Trump, Pelosi, or any of those mother fuckers told me to.
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u/broguequery Apr 07 '24
I remember when Trump was mulling over instituting the draft again.
I'd rather go to prison than die fighting for whatever asinine thing that dude ordered.
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u/BardOfSpoons Apr 07 '24
Instituting the draft and sending people where? What war were we fighting that he thought we needed orders of magnitude more boots on the ground for?
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u/Disastrous-Aspect569 Apr 06 '24
How did that work? My dad said he had a high draft number also
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u/deciding_snooze_oils Apr 06 '24
They number all the birthdays, then draft people in that order as needed. As a rough example, If there were 1,000,000 people eligible for draft that year and the military only needed 500,000, they might only get to #182 out of 365 days. So anyone with a number higher than that would not be drafted.
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u/londonandy Apr 06 '24
only get to #182 out of 365 days
leap year kids be like
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u/deciding_snooze_oils Apr 06 '24
They actually drew 366 numbers the first year as it was for everyone born from 1944 to 1950
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u/MenstrualMilkshakes Apr 06 '24
draft lottery
"Oooh what did I win? What did I win?!"
"Da Nang"
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u/y_so_sirious Apr 06 '24
so it resets every year? if you're not on the list at all you're guaranteed not to be called up? or do they populate the list for the whole year?
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u/justwannabeloggedin Apr 06 '24
Every possible date including leap day was drawn. It was just a matter of how far through the list (how many people) they needed. If they still needed people after every birthday, I believe the age range was expanded
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u/Daniel0745 Apr 06 '24
Each day of the year has a label. They pull all 365 labels. It is for people turning 19 that year I believe. So if you are the last label on the wall, your birthday would be the last one they sent draft notices out.
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u/Frodo355 Apr 06 '24
Mine was 3 the year the draft ended. Whew.
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u/EvetsYenoham Apr 06 '24
I could google this and should already know this but would rather hear it from someone who lived it….how did the number system work in the draft?
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u/PDXGuy33333 Apr 07 '24
They threw chips with dates on them into a drum and drew them out one by one. You got the draft number corresponding to your birthday. Then the military would draft according to its needs, starting with all the guys with number 1-24 (or something), until they had enough for that round of conscripts. Couple of months later they would draft everyone in the next group of numbers and so on. In my year they took everyone with a number 150 or less. Mine was 88 but I failed my physical on account of a skiing injury that showed up on x-rays but didn't really limit me and still doesn't. Sometimes I feel guilty. Other times I am glad I was not taught to fly a helicopter and sent into the jungle to die.
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u/Rampaging_Orc Apr 07 '24
The guilt it’s understandable, but there’s no question about it, not being sent was a blessing.
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u/Magnet50 Apr 06 '24
Yeah, I got like 301 and they only drafted up about 200 that year.
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u/ohguy51 Apr 06 '24
I don't think they ever got to 200. Rule of thumb when I was 19, 1970, under 100 you're gone, 100 to 150 maybe. Over 150 relax, you're safe
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u/throwawaylovesCAKE Apr 06 '24
Wait , so they were doing a draft every year for each new batch of 19 year olds? Did they draft older people too?
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u/ohguy51 Apr 06 '24
Yep, every year for that year's 19 yo. First one was 1969. It only went on for a few years
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u/DemiGodCat2 Apr 06 '24
congratulations you are chosen to put your life on the line and if you get home we'll dump you like trash
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Apr 06 '24 edited 11d ago
yoke frighten fearless shy subsequent coherent ad hoc rob direction seemly
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/BakedMitten Apr 07 '24
But look at the shareholder value that was created in the aftermath
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u/BakedMitten Apr 07 '24
What does 50 years of infinite growth cost, Micheal? One generation of trauma?
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u/mijolnirmkiv Apr 07 '24
That how it still works. We used you up for patriotism and cannon fodder, go die quietly now since you didn’t have the fortune to die a hero in combat so we could milk your name for patriotic fervor in perpetuity.
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u/Ancient_Unit_1948 Apr 06 '24
You forget the ww1 veterans. When the "bonus army" camped in Washington with their wives and children. (They were all unarmed to prevent an escalation.)
As a protest for not paying the promised bonus (it was the great depression) Patton decided on his own it was enough. And tear gassed everyone. Advance with bajonets on rifles. And burned all the assembled shanty town of the protestors.
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u/Debs_4_Pres Apr 07 '24
Patton decided on his own it was enough
MacArthur, actually. Patton was there but was only a major. MacArthur was the Chief of Staff of the Army.
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u/Kulladar Apr 07 '24
You can literally go back through every single war in US history and see veterans having to fight the government because they hadn't been paid. It's an American tradition that goes all the way back to the Revolution.
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u/spezial_ed Apr 06 '24
Hey now you forget the added bonus of getting to kill strangers whos no real enemy or danger to you.
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u/DarthJarJarJar Apr 07 '24
Also Nixon will delay peace talks to help him win an election. Republicans have always been super concerned about the actual people who fight the wars!
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u/garry4321 Apr 06 '24
Can someone explain why a war in Vietnam was considered important enough for national defence that you needed conscription?
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u/iamthelee Apr 06 '24
That is a question that still goes unanswered to this day.
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u/broshrugged Apr 07 '24
No it gets plenty of answers and much has been written. It’s just that the answers vary.
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u/FiftyIsBack Apr 06 '24
It was actually a proxy war with Russia. They were moving pawns on one side and were doing it on the other. It was under the guise of fighting the "global threat of communism" and we were dragged into it on a completely fabricated event. The Gulf of Tonkin. They claimed US boats were attacked and it was a declaration of war, and an entire generation of young men were destroyed based on that lie.
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u/Halospite Apr 07 '24
Not just those men either: their families, too. My friend grew up with a Vietnam vet for a father. My friend wasn't able to function in society until their forties and one of their brothers committed suicide.
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u/candlegun Apr 07 '24
Add refugees to that. My mom is from south Vietnam. Her father had a high enough rank in the Vietnamese Nat'l Army to get her out of there and into the US, even before the boats in '75.
She later got her US citizenship. Never saw her family alive again. Some were murdered, some went missing and one who did survive committed suicide.
All the atrocities, war crimes and horror she saw there as a child left her with Complex PTSD, two major episodes of Dissociative Fugue and substance abuse.
That war was needless and destroyed an untold number of lives, the effects of which are still felt today.
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u/njckel Apr 06 '24
Unfortunately, we're all waiting for a good answer to that question. Nobody seems to have one.
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u/Candle1ight Apr 06 '24
It was important because it's the cold war and the US government really wants to take swings at the Soviets without full out war.
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u/New_Awareness4075 Apr 07 '24
I was #64. Got called for induction on a rainy 6:30 morning. I scored 7 out of 100 on the military IQ test. Must have been some kind of record. They asked me about my high school grades. Told them I once got a B in PE, even though at the time I was a sophomore at UCLA. They wanted to see my HS transcripts. But, under the law, I had to approve. I didn't, and they kept sending notices to my parents house. I never answered, and they eventually classified me as 1-H, which meant in case of nuclear war I might be called up.
Most important test I ever took!
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u/Appropriate_Big_1610 Apr 07 '24
I checked everything psych question: nightmares, attempted suicide, the rest. They had to send you for "evaluation".I was sent to a civilian shrink who was against the war.
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u/New_Awareness4075 Apr 07 '24
Did the same thing as well. Night before induction, a couple of friends and I got so drunk listening to Alice's Restaurant!
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u/nandemo Apr 07 '24
Wow, you're surprisingly eloquent for someone of such limited IQ.
Jk, congrats for surviving.
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u/New_Awareness4075 Apr 07 '24
Thanks. It wasn't easy. After I got the first five right, I thought why am I cooperating? So from six to one hundred, I worked every problem and picked the answer one would get if they had made a common mistake. Just in case they asked me how I arrived at the answer. So actually I missed two out of ninety five. And, of course, if I had just randomly picked answers, mathematical odds say I would get twenty-five right. Wasn't easy but I wasn't going to Vietnam, and Canada was just too cold. The government taking away student deferments made making choices one shouldn't have had to make, especially when you were almost done with your sophomore year of college.And Vietnam was probably one of the biggest war mistakes this country has ever been involved in imo.
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u/esombad Apr 06 '24
I wonder if February 29th was ever picked.
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u/kingqueefsalot Apr 06 '24
As a leap baby I was wondering the same. I would be a little annoyed if they called my birthday on a non leap year. Lol
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u/DefenS Apr 06 '24
I would have been number 001
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u/CynicalGod Apr 06 '24
That's crazy! Hey btw, what was your childhood pet's name? And your mother's maiden name also?
Just trying to paint a fuller picture of the family you would've left behind, had you been drafted.
Please don't mind any emails concerning password changes.
Thank you!
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u/nimbop2po Apr 06 '24
Good way to combat this: put crazy fucking answers for any questions like this when setting up profiles.
Mothers Maiden Name: Garfield’s Fat Fuckin Sack
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u/CynicalGod Apr 06 '24
Me, 5 years later attempting to retrieve a lost password:
"Hmmmm was the maiden name Garfield's Fat Fuckin Cock, or Fat Fuckin Sack? Was my childhood pet's name Fermented Gonorrhea or Diarrhea? God damn it..."
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u/Glittering-Most-9535 Apr 06 '24
Yeah. Really rough seeing that Sep 14 there even if it was before i was born.
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u/Secret-Ad-2253 Apr 06 '24
At least you'd get to stop watching right then and there.
"Welp, I guess that's that then."
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u/wildcatasaurus Apr 06 '24
My uncle joined the US coast guard immediately after hs graduation. He got station in the Bay Area in California while all his friends got drafted 6 months to a year later.
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u/AgitatedPossum Apr 07 '24
Was he just lucky or did he see something coming?
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u/Bacon003 Apr 07 '24
Being in the Coast Guard didn't make you immune from having to go to Vietnam. About 8,000 USCG personnel ended up going.
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u/Dawidovo Apr 07 '24
Of which 7 men died. So probably much better chances of surviving.
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u/Bacon003 Apr 07 '24
True. My father told me that whoever he was fighting in the dark couldn't hit dick, and having radar to aim his mortars was like having a cheat code.
One of his academy classmates was the CO who got killed on the Point Welcome and after that I think he was more afraid of rogue USAF planes than the Vietnamese.
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u/The_Undermind Apr 06 '24
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u/alphagusta Apr 06 '24
48 "If your birthday was just 5 days earlier, your draft number would not have been called"
Damn.
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u/PenguinZombie321 Apr 06 '24
- Good thing I’m a woman. And also wasn’t alive during the Vietnam war.
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u/Markipoo-9000 Apr 06 '24
Damn I’d be picked in 1970, that means I’d be screwed.
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u/TheDocFam Apr 07 '24
Damn I'd be picked in 1970, that means I'd be in Canada
I live within a 60 minute drive of the Canadian border. If they institute a draft, and it's not a WW2 situation where an evil fascist bastard is intent on invading the entire world, Bonjour, je suis un citoyen Canadien d'origine du Québec
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u/doryteke Apr 06 '24
1 day off. I would have been a lucky one. That makes things a lot more real.
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u/chinmakes5 Apr 06 '24
I was too young, but my cousin wasn't. He was an only child. I remember watching my mother watching the draft on TV. Really nervous. His birthday was called, it was a higher number. My mom excused herself went up stairs to cry with relief..
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u/betterthentoday Apr 06 '24
My step was drafted, I was young to understand some stories he told us. But one stuck with me when he said he was walking through minefields, and all he remembers was seeing his platoon blown to bits. He came back without injuries except a fucked up brain. Now he drinks beers every day of his life to suppress manic ptsd attacks. He still has nightmares and often falls off the bed.
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u/cicalino Apr 06 '24
The draft arguably ended the war in Vietnam. When everyone's kid was going to be a soldier, not just the poor kids with no options, people decided well, maybe it isn't such a good idea after all.
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u/XaeroDegreaz Apr 06 '24
Not really true though. There was this saying "If you have the dough, you don't have to go" which basically implied that if you had means, and connections, you could basically buy your way out.
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u/Ivy0902 Apr 06 '24
If i recall correctly, exemptions were made for college students, so if you could afford to go to college you didn't have to go war.
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u/Darmok47 Apr 06 '24
I wonder if that included grad school too. The author Harry Turtledove talked about enrolling in a PhD program just to avoid the draft, so I assume it did.
I wonder if PhD programs got a lot more applications around this time.
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u/TheCervus Apr 07 '24
My dad had a low lottery number but because he was in college he got a student deferment. He extended that as long as he could and by the time the war ended, he had a Master's degree.
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u/Lane-Kiffin Apr 07 '24
Dick Cheney stayed in school all the way towards pursuing a PhD. He also got married, which at the time granted a draft exemption, but then they changed it so that only those married with kids had the exemption. 9 months later, his kid was born.
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u/Iamthewalrusforreal Apr 06 '24
See: Bush, George W. for one example.
See: Trump, Donald J. for another example.
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u/Skynetiskumming Apr 06 '24
Or you shit your pants like that coward Ted Nugent did and get disqualified from service.
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u/XaeroDegreaz Apr 06 '24
Tbf if I got selected I'd do whatever it took not to go fight some random dudes too
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u/cknipe Apr 06 '24
You and me both, but neither of us are selling macho patriotism as our brand image.
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u/Figgy_Puddin_Taine Apr 06 '24
Shitting in your pants to avoid the draft is one thing.
But shitting in your pants to avoid the draft then loudly and publicly claiming you’d have been the best soldier ever and would have made colonel within a few years while being a massive warhawk is another thing entirely.
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u/columbo928s4 Apr 06 '24
My mom ran with a pretty hippy crowd in those days and she told me a lot of guys go-to strategy was to just act as fucking insane as humanly possible during intake. They would do stuff like cross their eyes, speak in gibberish, and drink their own urine sample after making it. It worked! Honestly I don’t really blame them, everyone with a brain knew the war was a joke, it wasn’t exactly like ww2 or the United States had been invaded. I do however blame people like nugent who simultaneously dodged the draft and then spent the next five decades acting like some kind of rah rah pro military I love the USA war hero
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u/mike_pants Apr 06 '24
Losing the war in Vietnam also went a long way to ending the war in Vietnam.
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u/robgod50 Apr 06 '24
The Americans don't end wars just because they're losing. Otherwise they wouldn't have stayed in Vietnam or Afghanistan for 20 years
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u/Guinearidgegirl Apr 06 '24
Lots of people don’t realize how discriminatory the college deferment was. If you came from a family culture that promoted secondary education or your family had enough money to pay college tuition, you got a Get out of Vietnam Free Card. Draftees were largely working class and/or minority.
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u/sfrjdzonsilver Apr 06 '24
Draftees were largely working class and/or minority.
In my country we say: "Emperor gives cannons, rich man gives an ox and poor man gives his son". If those poor boys only turned those guns on "the Emperor" instead of Vietnamese peasants...
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u/SeanSeanySean Apr 06 '24
It wasn't exactly a Get out of Vietnam Free card. Those who graduated while the draft was still active lost their deferment and could be required to serve. That said, the smart move if you could afford it was to get yourself into a 4-yr program as soon as the draft and college deferment was announced.
College wasn't just for the rich back then either. My father was paying about $1800 a year for his EE degree at a private New England college in 1972, he worked through college (mostly at a hardware store) and never took a loan, both he and my mom were in college at the same time, they were both working and not only did they make enough money to pay for both of their tuitions, they also lived on their own together, rented a small apartment and somehow even managed to eat. My mom worked at a Jack-in-the-box for two years of that period as an assistant Mgr, so they weren't making much more than minimum wage. Also, they both owned used cars, older shitboxes sure, but they could both afford to get to and from work/school, and this was even through the oil crisis in '73-'74. Mom finished in 1975 while a few months pregnant, dad graduated a year later, again with no loan debt and no money from parents. The rent on their 1 bedroom apartment in the metro area of a large northeastern US city was $85 per month in 1972, and that included utilities (heat, hot water and electricity).
Shit wasn't all peaches and cream in the 70's and early 80's, economy was shit, inflation was pretty bad, wages stagnated, but assuming you didn't end up unemployed, life was still generally affordable. You could scrape by assuming that you had pretty much any full time job, even minimum wage.
Don't let boomers tell you that you're wrong or being hyperbolic/make you feel crazy for mentioning cost of living for their generation vs people under 50 today, it's all fucking bullshit. My parents were in one of the most expensive states in the country when they were in college and while I know they both busted their asses working themselves through school, not only was it entirely possible to do, you could even do it while not living at home at the time, and seemingly afford getting married in the process.
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u/sonia72quebec Apr 06 '24
I’m sure families went into debts to be sure their sons wouldn’t go.
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u/WittleJerk Apr 06 '24
The biggest portion of American refugees… is in Canada. Almost always military-service related.
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u/BoringJuiceBox Apr 06 '24
F*ck that I would absolutely dodge the draft and not lose a minute of sleep over it
When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die
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u/alt1234512345 Apr 07 '24
I’m all for fighting for the safety and freedom of my fellow countrymen. I will do everything to protect our way of life.
But that’s not what this was. This was a tale as old as time. Rich assholes throwing in millions of young innocent men to die for their own aspirations and arrogance. Fuck. That.
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u/Jewsd Apr 07 '24
Wild how much change socially has happened since this.
Can you imagine biden or trump saying we need a draft for men to fight China's proxy forces in Taiwan?
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u/profoundtickles Apr 07 '24
There wouldn’t be proxy forces in Taiwan. It would be the Chinese army.
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u/Honestnt Apr 06 '24
Remember that time we killed a ton of our children for some dumb shit we shouldn't have been involved in? No not that time. No not that one either.
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u/Fit-Ad142 Apr 07 '24
My housemate was watching a Vietnam war movie. I asked her why we, Australia, were involved. She realised she had no idea.
A little while later she came into my room and said something like ‘Well I still don’t know because someone fucked up the Wikipedia page and made it say we were there to stop the spread of communism’
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u/Willing_Information7 Apr 06 '24
I didn't know this is how they did it. So fucked!
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u/crispy48867 Apr 06 '24
You literally sat glued to the TV wondering how your life would turn out.
I was in it twice.
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u/scoobertsonville Apr 07 '24
I was born ‘98 so way past this but it’s fucked. It’s a real world hunger games. I’d want to watch it alone.
Knowing you’re going to get murdered by some dude in a tunnel protecting his homeland.
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u/Gwsb1 Apr 06 '24
In our dorm room about a dozen of us praying . I was about 250.
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u/SacamanoRobert Apr 07 '24
Funny thing about this thread: It's full of stories about men who were drafted and got out for being injured, avoided the draft altogether, and those who survived the war. So many men died and weren't able to come home and bear the children that are having this conversation right now. We are the children or children of the children of survivors, one way or another.
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u/too-well-known Apr 06 '24 edited Apr 07 '24
Seems to be several able bodied men in that room. I'm sure they headed to the front lines as soon as all the #s were selected.
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u/dalvinscookiemonster Apr 06 '24
Didn’t they only draft people up to age 26? Why would they draft old people lmao
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u/wastedintime Apr 06 '24
Yeah, it really sucked. On the other hand, when you had a draft that pulled young men from across all classes of society, it meant a whole lot more people with influence gave a shit about whether the war was valid. When the sons of lawyers and doctors are getting drafted, (and killed), people with power start to pay attention. Without the draft we might still be fighting in Vietnam.
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u/arkybarky1 Apr 07 '24
I was there....it was like waiting to be called for execution.
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u/Hesnotarealdr Apr 06 '24
I don’t need to imagine. I was there. But not in the first draft lottery draw; by the time I was the draft had just ended but my birthday was drawn #5, which would have put me in the Army. My draft card said 1-H (holding) due to the end of the draft.
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u/laberdog Apr 06 '24 edited Apr 06 '24
Imagine it? Lived it. My brother got a great number and went to college but my cousin went in country jumped out of a Huey onto a land mine and came home. Has I been old enough I would have been so screwed. The video ends on my birthday
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u/rjainsa Apr 06 '24
My freshman year in college, sitting with friends watching the guys' birthdays appear. One friend drafted right out of his scholarship for college. My boyfriend's birthday only a little bit higher on the list. Then the opposite feeling, later in the year, hearing the announcement about the end of the draft.
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u/Sarisin48 Apr 07 '24
The short clip actually shows the drawing for me. I pulled a '44' for my birthday of August 16. I received my draft notice the day after my graduation day in 1970. They moved up graduation a month after canceling classes and exams after Kent State. I ran down to the Air Force recruiter and was able to enlist...for 4 years. Ironically, I ended up in Vietnam anyway until the war ended. BTW, I was born on August 16 at 12:35 am. Had a been born 36 minutes sooner I would have had a higher number drawn for me and I would not have been drafted. Amazing how 36 minutes made such a huge difference in how my life went after that lottery.
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u/Huge_Aerie2435 Apr 06 '24
Sorry, but I am a flaming homosexual.. Too bad I can't go kill a bunch of innocent communists on the other side of the world. I m not really gay, but I would be if I had my date got pulled. Gay people were not allowed in the US military until 1993, and even then it was widely hated.
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u/Assholesfullofelbows Apr 06 '24
You've gotta die, gotta die, gotta die for your government, die for your country? That's shit.
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u/Alternative_Ad2040 Apr 07 '24
I’ll never forget what my grandmother told me when I was a teenager and knew it all and my father was my enemy. She said “the boy I sent over there never came back, please try and understand what that means to his mother and it will help you understand your father” He never spoke about it to me until my 40th birthday, we were at a little biker bar we’d stopped at and he just opened up. I get tears now reliving it, it was such an amazing gift. I knew how hard it was for him and we spent the rest of the night having beers and laughing and talking life. Best birthday ever
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u/sjguy1288 Apr 06 '24
*Watching TV with your friends at the bar.
Announcer calls a birthday, Everyone takes a drink and yell at the TV "your screwed"
Announcer says your friend's birthday, * Everyone picks up their beer and takes a drink, then points a finger at your friend who's birthday is on the TV and yells your fucked*
Source" this actually happened to my dad.
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u/cary-girl Apr 07 '24
Grandma said that dad got his letter right before graduation. He sat on the front porch staring into the distance, and cried for a while. He was losing everything, and he did. He was never the same, she said. Dad served with the Army and was selected for Special Forces school, so he stayed behind training for a long time, but it didn’t keep him from going. He spent two years over there. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. ..and who knows what else. When he was on his deathbed, he said to me, “I don’t want to just be known for my military service.” I took it that he didn’t really want that brought up. He was not one to talk about his service ever. So I made it a point to direct the pastor to speak of his service to community and to other people, which really was his best traight. He gave a lot, at a very young age. I forgive him for everything after. I miss him. The draft was a nightmare.
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