I didn't know that, Rich. Thank you very much for your service,
It was a strange time, and I hope that the documentary explains the choices that draft-eligible men were faced with.
Every male had a military service obligation of six years and had to register for the draft at the age of 18. If you were still in high school you couldn't be drafted until after graduation. If you were then going to college, you could get a student deferment for as long as you remained in college.
If you weren't going to college, you could wait to be drafted, which meant that you would almost certainly be inducted into the Army and you would spend two years on active duty. Alternatively, you could enlist in the Army for three years and hope that as a volunteer you would get better (safer) duty than a draftee. But not every draftee was sent to Vietnam. A high school buddy was drafted into the Army and spent his active duty time in Germany. Another served his Army active duty time in Korea.
You could enlist in the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, or the Coast Guard, but enlisting in those services required a four-year active duty commitment, which for an 18-year-old seemed like a very long time.
Draftees and enlistees who fulfilled their active duty obligation were transferred to the inactive reserves to complete their six-year obligation. Inactive reservists were subject to being recalled to active duty, but otherwise they had no military duties.
Some men were able to get into the National Guard, which involved just six months of active duty but 5 1/2 years of active reserve duty. Of the 2.8 million Americans who served in Vietnam only about 9,000 were with the National Guard, so it was regarded by many as the preferred way to fulfill their military obligation without having to worry about seeing combat. But as the war expanded National Guard units began filling up rapidly. There have been accusations that some politicians and athletes were given preferential treatment to get into the Guard.
Another option was to enlist in the Reserves for two years of active duty and four years of active reserve duty. Active reserve duty required attendance at weekly or monthly meetings and two weeks of active duty every year.
And of course there were ways to avoid military duty altogether. You could apply for conscientious objector status. There were deferments for certain occupations (there was no shortage of schoolteachers in those days because teachers were exempt from the draft). You could try to find a compliant doctor to write that you had heel spurs or flat feet. You could try to figure out a way to fail your pre-induction physical (I have a relative who learned how to dramatically increase his blood pressure and he failed his physical and was never drafted). Many others, of course, had real medical conditions which made them unfit for the military. Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted and was convicted of draft evasion. It's estimated that 20,000-30,000 men fled to Canada to avoid the draft.
The draft was so controversial that a lottery was instituted in 1969 and the college deferments were ended.
When I turned 18 I was sick of school and didn't want to go to college. I didn't want to be drafted, either. A Navy recruiter came to my high school and convinced me to "join the Navy and see the world." After boot camp and communications school I spent 18 months in the Philippines followed by two years on an aircraft carrier (the carrier deployed to Vietnam twice during my time aboard). I was lucky - nobody ever tried to shoot me.
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