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

I never got one. I enlisted in the infantry and volunteered to go to Vietnam in late '69. Funny thing is, my recruiter kept trying to talk me out of it because the draft gave the army plenty of cannon fodder. However, my GT score was 138 and I was qualified for a number of hard-to-fill specialties.

I wanted none of it. He finally leaned back in his chair and threw up his hands saying: "They taught me in recruiting school that if someone throws you the ball, you'd better be able to catch it. Fine. You wanna go airborne infantry and go to 'Nam, it's on you. Don't ever tell anybody I forced you into it.

Later, while climbing the cargo net obstacle on the confidence course at Ft. Ord, CA--which was about 80 feet high and you had to climb over a large log and then go down the other side, I discovered I was afraid of heights.

The Sr. DS, a Hawaiian built like a fire plug, saw me hesitate at the top and shouted, "You still wanna go airborne, Maggot?"

"No, Drill Sergeant!" I shouted back.

"Report to my office when we get back," he said.

Later, there was a line outside his door with about a dozen guys who decided airborne wasn't for them. The grizzled SFC called us in and passed out "quit slips." . . .

I wound up going to Infantry AIT at Ft. Jackson, SC, in the winter. Hardly the best place to get RVN training. When a recruiter for the Visual Tracker Course came to aske for volunteers to train to become part of a five-man team with four visual trackers and a tracker dog and handler, 15 of us signed up.

While going through the course at Ft. Gordon, GA, they had us do seat and Australian rappeling from 150-feet out of Hueys. I absolutely loved it! Turned out my fear of heights only manifests itself when I'm climbing something.

The only problem I had at tracker school was that I was unable to master the tracking skills and washed out during the fifth week. . . .

I did not have those feeling Mike, I was an RA and volunteered for 4 years!

I didn't have those feeling Mike, I was an RA and took four years!

I'm not sure what my first thought was, but one of them was "I think I'll join the Air Force". When I went to see my recruiter I found out that ordinarily I would not have been able to go that route, but I had previously (like right after high school) gone to see the AF recruiter but hadn't followed up on it at the time. Since I had previously made contact with the AF I was allowed to join and my draft spot went to someone else. Probably. I would have been ok with going into the Army, but I figured that if I didn't have to I wouldn't. Was that a mistake? I don't think so. I probably would have gotten myself killed or captured.

I was in Basic when the Drafts ending was announced and was too young to get a draft card.

I was a draft dodger....I enlisted so they couldn't draft me....

I avoided the draft totally. I joined the Marines when I was seventeen!

My brother got a draft notice for the Army. His story is as follows: At AFEES he was being a smart ass with the Army and told them he wasn't going with them. They said he didn't have a choice so he left the office and the Sergeant followed him into the Marine Corps office when he presented his draft notice to them and said "If I have to join anything it will be the Marines." Of course the Marine Corps took him and the Army Sergeant said, "You can have him!" The rest is history.

I was an RA during the Nam war, I volunteered to join the Army and volunteered to go to Vietnam.

I was really happy problem I had was I was in Nam at the time and the old man would not let go home and answer the call. Took my notice and said he would take care of it. My folks lost family in WWII and did not want me in the Marines would not see me off. I just wanted to get out of the area I lived in and really did not know what I was getting into. Did not care I was on my own. Best choice I have ever made.

I laughed. I was in basic training. What could they do to me if I didn't show up? I had two friends to [and you want believe this] run out and get married. [Who in their right mind would do that?] I graduated high school is a guy who was 22 years old--he kept failing. After 4 years they told him, graduate or fail, we don't care. You will be drafted.