What were your feelings and thoughts when you first opened your draft notice?

3 kids, a battery factory I owned with 17 employees working for me, 25 years old and they wanted to draft me ? ? ? I filed appeals and turned 26 before I was reauired to go. I took my physical and basic tests and was ready but lucked out by turning 26. I was prepared and would have done my duty but it would have meant the end of my business and employes jobs.
Get this ... I was actually making and selling batteries to the army. Oh well, that's my story.

I was already enlisted in the USN so I never got an invite, but my brother did get his. He went down to the Navy recruiter the next day and enlisted before his reporting date. I knew plenty of guys who got their invitations and their reactions ran the gamut from "Oh damn!" to 'Oh, okay!" to "How do I get to Canada?"

In 1972 there was still a draft lottery. Your birthday was assigned a lottery number, mine was 175 but they were only calling numbers up to 150. About a month after I got my notice saying I wasn't going to be drafted I joined the Navy and stayed in for 22.5 years. I never went in country, but would have if called upon.

My late father was overjoyed to receive the news. He was less so when his CO wouldn't let him return to the states (from Vietnam) to handle the rest of the business properly.

Or, so was the story he told.

After I stopped laughing I went to my troop commander and told him I had to report for induction into the United States Army. He made some rather crude remarks about there being a few bugs in the Oedipus system. Who would have thought a West Point football player could be so elegant!

Joint the Navy 1 step ahead of the draft, got draft notice in Recruit training (SD, Ca.), BT1 Carter (company commander) and company adjutant, got a good laugh out of it, settled with U. S. Army and I caught all sorts of flak during my 14 weeks of fun and pleasure. Don't regret it, but don't want to go through it again.

Now you have taken a simple question and complicated it. I was sitting my hooch in Korea when the draft notice my Dad forwarded to arrive. We all got a good laugh at that. Some of you may remember when you were doing something that maybe higher ups might frown the common phrase was "What are they going to do, draft me and send me to your choice Korea or Vietnam.)" I always thought that was a funny thing to say. But, I just ignored my draft notice on the advice of S-1. Some time after that, I never did get a time line, but got a letter from my Mom (actually a big box of goodies) advising me that the FBI had come by the house again. This was their 2nd visit, the first visit was part of the back ground check for my security clearance (TS/ENTNAC) for working in S-2 and of course this 2nd visit was to arrest my ass for not reporting as directed in my draft notice. Funny side bar, when I enlisted a bus load of us were send down to AAFES Station in Oakland, CA for our pre-induction physical which took two days. The put us up in the several story 1920's fire trap, cockroach hotel near AAFES. That was quite an experience, nothing like I was expecting. I was thing more along the lines of our annual high school football physical - nope - not the same at all! But about two weeks later I was advised to go through the entire process again for my draft physical. The best part of the two trips was the Doggie Diner a block away from the AAFES. If you have even been to the Bay Area you must have eaten at a Doggie Diner. The best greasy spoon slow fast food joints on the West Coast. When I enlisted the recruiter put me on a delay entry so the dates would match up for the start of AIT (31M) at Ft. Gordon, GA.
My stance on the war? Of course I was afraid of going to Vietnam, honestly, that was the reason I enlisted in hopes of avoiding 'Nam. I didn't know it at the time but 31M was one of the most critical MOS's in Korea and Vietnam at the time. 31M was basically setting up and manning hilltop VHF voice, Morse Code and teletype messages from field to command and back or unit to unit. I was very popular at that (Winter 1968) to be anti-war hippie type and wanting to protest the war. I got mixed in with that crowd in college but I just did not see eye-to-eye with those folks. I was a theater arts major in college so ran into a lot of doves lefties. My Dad had polio as a baby and youth and had talk me several times about how sorry he was that he could not get into the Army or any service during WWII. More all the men in my family served in WWII and I wanted to follow in their footsteps. In fact my uncle married a woman in England so I had a British aunt! I guess the final decision to enlist was a pretty easy one to make. My best friend from grammar school and high school and I were going to enlist on the "Buddy System." We really wanted the Navy but they a lengthy waiting list, which we put ourselves on. We then walked down the hall to the "Army Guy." We both ended up enlisting but the sad part was that my buddy was 4F and would not be going with me. Bottom line as to the question, I was intentional about joining the military. I hoped I would not go to Vietnam but would gladly go it ordered to do so. Near the end of Signal School the usual dream sheet came around and I requested Vietnam but I don't recall what I put for choice 2 and 3. Naturally they sent me to Korea.
Part 3 above asks it parents had any input into my enlistment. I think what I have written thus far really answers that question.
We were so young then. Sometimes I look back lovingly on those days. It was a very strange time for the United States and our culture and confusing for a lot of us as well. It was only worse when I came home from my 2nd tour in Korea and my ETS, everything was different. Some of my former friends actually shunned me for being a veteran. I hung out with other vets and we were able to kinda hang together and prop each other up while we were getting over the new American culture, which was really strange.

Sp4 Byron Skinner… When I got my draft notice I was already in week six of BCT at E-1-5th. BCT Brigade at Ft. Polk. When my mother forwarded my no show I was at Ft. Dix in M Co. 1st AIT Brigade. The time was late 1965 and 1966 at the start of the 500,000 troop surge in Vietnam. The System was so clogged up that the 2nd Armor Division at Ft. Hood and the 5th. Infantry Division at Ft. Carson became Basic Combat Training units. DEcember Draftees were in Reception Centers around the Army until March before starting BCT. The finished in June and were sent to deploying units of the 4th. ID, Ft. Lewis, the 9th. ID FT Riley, the 196th. LI Brigade at Ft. Devins and the 11th ACR at Ft. Meade, were also in the process of com missing were the 199th. Lt. Brigade and the 11th. LI Brigade…The tragic thing about conscription was that none of these troops got any AIT and when they came to their units, unit training had already been completed and they were in essence they were sent to Vietnam out of BCT and during the first cycle for these newly deployed these draftees mad up a disproportionate number of the Serious WIA's and KIA's ,,,Most of the injured and killed were not in line units but were in the support and service units who ran into mines, bobby traps, goth caught in a Mortar or Rocket barrage or a road ambushes. Jr. Officers wet "Shake and Bakes" fresh out of OCS. The most noted of these was Platoon Leader 2lt. William Calley of the Amercal Division (23ed.. Infantry Division)

My grandfather was a Vietnam Era vet. I looked up to him. I ended up making the decision to serve.

I did not get one I beat them to it. I graduated from college and started dental school. The first week there recruiters from all the services were present to entice us to join. I had a very low draft number and being from Brooklyn NY it was only a matter of time. I also felt a sense of duty and family tradition. My father was a crew chief on a B-24 in WW2 so I wanted to serve. The early commission program they were offering made me a 2nd LT in the reserves and after graduation I would go on active duty. I went to Fort Sam in San Antonio for basic in Aug of 1972 and then to Ft Lee VA as a Captain in the dental corp.