More From Kerry's Fantasy World

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labman

Regarding ability to get into the National Guard, in most places, there was a big difference between 1961 and 1968. In 1961, there was no shooting war going on. In 1968, we had over a half a million in the SouthEast Asia zone, and a shooting war.

In New Jersey, the waiting list in 1967 was over two years long to get into the Guard.

The sorry thing about Bush is, after he got into the Guard and the taxpayers spent big bucks to train him as a pilot, he skipped his mandatory physical and as a result was grounded and could not do the job he had been trained for. No reasonable explanation has been offered for why he did this, but it is widely understood that at this stage of his life he was so alcoholic that he could not pass the physical, and he did not want this on his record.

Since he was one of the elite with a lot of pull from his daddy, nobody in the Guard made an issue of this.
 
k1xv, 1968 was about when our student deferments were running out. I can only remember 2 of my friends joining the Guard now, neither of which came from a rich or powerful family. One went in the Pennsylvania guard and the other in the Connecticut with no problems getting in. Later in the early 70's, I remember the Pennsylvania Guard doing public service projects as a recruitment tool. Very few took the bait. The regular draft was 2 years, maybe less since the army had more people that had already put in their year in Nam than they could use. For somebody in their 20's, the Guard looked like the rest of their life. The guard made do with what they could find. With all the negative things said after Kent State, nobody accused them of being from a rich elite. The facts make you charge of only a rich elite a big liberal lie that has been repeated endlessly. My friends, family, and I lived those years. I have more than biased reports to go on. The news media wasn't as bad then as now, but it was going down hill.

Even if there was a waiting list, could it be that it was organization and planning ahead, rather than pull? You know those rotten conservatives are always looking ahead.
 
The draft lottery was instituted in the Nixon Administration, I believe 1970 or 1971. I remember that I pulled, in the first lottery, a number around 340.

As I recall, student and industrial deferments did not end simultaneous with the first lottery but generally were scrutinized more closely.

With the lottery, you were only exposed for one year, and in the first lottery, everybody 18-26 was exposed that year. After that year passed, you were "home free". This resulted in a very large potential pool in the first year. As a result, it was not expected that the draft callup for the first year would get beyond those with the number 100. I don't think they got beyond 60 or so. By 1971, the number of US troops in the VietNam theater was around half of what it was in 1968.

If you voluntarily dropped your deferment and were never called, you were home free. So many chose to voluntarily give up deferments they held if their number was high enough.

I am not going to argue about what was involved in getting into the National Guard in every state. All I know was that in 1968 in NJ it was impossible unless you had gotten on the waiting list many months before.
 
I was in the USMC when they had the lottery
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my number was over 300. I wish I could of sold it to some civilian
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