Mainly by being in high school. I got my first social studies question about Vietnam in the 5th grade and it was still going on when I was a senior, but the Paris Peace Talks happened and the POWs came home the spring that I graduated. I didn't avoid the military, I was registered, classified 1-A, and had a lottery number of 291. But they only called up 19-year olds that year and the next year they stopped the draft. I still have my draft card, not a scorch on it. How did you avoid the infantry? I was on the waiting list for the Coast Guard . . . but it was a very long list.
I'm not. I have no problem with that PA if it helps stop attacks. I'm not so self enduldged to believe that the govt is worried about what I'm talking about on the phone nor do they care. I'm not saying you fell for this but many did. I'm also sure that someone will be right behind me saying "NO way people are that misinformed" BUT... This probably does have a lot to do with it. There are so many that think he could have just snapped his fingers and said, "Bring our boys home" Sorry it just doesn't work that way. Had his first order of business been to do just that it would still take the better part of 18mos if not more to get them home.
. Ahhhh...a precocious hippie. By enlisting. I had a sense of duty but I also had an 18 year love affair with my own ass.:hihi:
Me either. But I do worry about politicians using it to illegally spy on the other party for political espionage. If Nixon had the Patriot Act every democrat and liberal newspaper in the country would have been wiretapped for political reasons. I didn't trust Bush with unrestrained power and I don't trust Obama with it either.
I thought about spinning you a tale about going to Canada with Jane Fonda, but it might have made Grumpy blow an O-ring. My back-up plan, once the Coast Guard scheme looked hopeless was . . . get into the Army band. I was a damn good trumpet player and I had already talked to four different Army band directors and knew what I had to do to get diverted from Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Benning or Fort Polk to Advanced Individual Training at the school of music in Norfolk. There were some very excellent military bands during that war! :hihi:
