Re: Boomers - do you remember???? - Page 7

Noel7 · ‎03-09-2010

The draft did not treat everyone the same, that's for sure.

During the Vietnam War era, between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. military drafted 2.2 million American men out of an eligible pool of 27 million.

That means, four and a half million got out of the draft.

Here's a report how that worked for some:

"In the beginning of the war, names of all American men in draft-age were collected by the Selective Service System. When someone’s name was called, he had to report to his local draft board, which was made up of various community members, so that they could begin to evaluate his draft status. By this manner, local draft boards had an enormous power to decide who had to go and who would stay. Consequently, draft board members were often under pressure from their family, relatives and friends to exempt potential draftees.

Most of U.S. soldiers drafted during the Vietnam War were men from poor and working-class families. The least political power sections were mistreated. As a matter of fact, American forces in Vietnam included twenty-five percent poor, fifty-five percent working-class, twenty percent middle-class men, but very few came from upper-classes families. Many soldiers came from rural towns and farming communities."

http://thevietnamwar.info/vietnam-war-draft/

RedHeadedWench · ‎03-21-2010

I was young when the war was in its prime, and I remember watching the news with my mom and grandmother and seeing the footage. I also remember many of my friend's attending their brother's funerals.

Marienkaefer2 · ‎03-09-2010

@151949 wrote:
The unofficial theme song of the soldiers serving in Viet Nam? WE GOTTA GET OUTTA THIS PLACE.
A friend from nursing school whose husband was in Nam sent her a tape of the guys in his unit singing this song.I had a reel to reel tape player and we played that tape endlessly in our dorm. Sadly, her husband became one of the 58,000 + who didn't come home.Today she posted a picture of him and the tape on her FB page. She never remarried, had a little boy a few weeks after we graduated and raised him alone.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.--Marcus Tullius Cicero

blackhole99 · ‎08-22-2013

I certainly do remember that song and that time. I graduated from high school in 1968 and there were a handful of guys from my class who served and all came home. At a high school reunion the guys who opted out by going to college mentioned that to this day, they feel guilty for not having done their part. The guys who did serve from our class do not give those guys the time of day. Our town respected the boys who served in Viet Nam. The kids who attended the university near by, knew better than to demonstrate in the streets of our town against the war or disrespect the soldiers in any way. They would have been run out of town or worse. When I would see the demonstrations on tv and listen to all the rhetoric, I couldn't believe this was happening in our country.