In the US military of today, everyone who joins wants to be there and, especially considering the economic situation right now, there’s a great deal of pressure to “make it”.
Back in the days when the draft was in effect, how easy, practically, was it to get out of your service obligation by missing performance goals without being convicted for misconduct? E.g. could Joe Draftee simply “miss” an unacceptable number of shots in boot camp, or consistently make “errors” of judgment in the field, to the point where the CO says, “You’re hopeless, go home!”? What safeguards were actually in place in the Army to discern those who intentionally weren’t trying hard enough because they wanted out from those who really and truly didn’t have what it took to “make it” in the Army?
To start with, the drill sargents were no dummies; like when your mom knew you’d been in the cookie jar, these guys knew every trick. They could tell if you were faking it, and from what I’ve heard they took it personally. They could tell real failure from slacking off.
Plus, remember that the current concern about the well-being of recruits is a recent thing. In the 60’s it was all part of the exercise. Nobody would likely outright kill you, but your ass was theirs for the next few years and if you wanted to see who could outlast the other in a battle of wills, I bet the USMC or army wins…
Another famous tactic was to punish the whole squad for one recruit’s failure. If that didn’t “incentivize” the other recruits to tune you up after lights-out, then they had some good exercise regimens that would also motivate you.
My guess is the bar for passing was set very low and failing it would be automatic misconduct, apart from in really exceptional cases. Putting in a passable but unacceptably weak performance would result in physical punishments from the sergeants and retribution from fellow privates rather than discharge.
In my army days, I never knew a recruit who flunked out of basic training, but I only went through it one time. If a recruit passed the initial physical, he should be able to go the distance (although I did know one draftee who was sent home in the 3rd week of training when I got him another eye exam and they found out he didn’t qualify after all).
There’s a tremendous amount of enforced peer pressure. If someone isn’t making the grade, the cadre may tell the entire group that NO ONE will get their reward (whatever that may be – leave, lunch, whatever) until ALL have passed some test. You betcha that troop will pass by hook or crook, even if it kills him (and that supposedly happened, too).
Now bear in mind I was in during the peacetime… “all volunteer” Navy but we did have a recruit that everyone thought was failing on purpose. A simple “Blanket party” fixed the problem. 6 of the company Recruit “Petty officers” got together and scared the bejesus outta this guy. Pulled a blanket over his head and body while he was asleep, stetching it taught to hold him down. No blows were thrown but he got the message by a whispered warning while he was pinned down.
Just tell them you’re a dope smoker or gay(we’re talking about historical drafts right?) a famous musician supposedly got 4H’d simply by wearing a dress to report.
Seriously these boards looked for any excuse to reject you, hell just describe some sick fantasies to your assigned psychologist and you’re out.
THATS HOT!! Bet you guys could have penetrated him anally while he was restrained like that, had your way with him, big muscular sailors…
See it is easy
I don’t know- of course one doesn’t know how one will react in an extreme situation, but I’m sort of thinking that faced with the prospect of going to 'Nam or whatever other horrors worse than death, intense peer pressure and being berated by my peers and superiors doesn’t sound like it can hold a candle to the alternative. If they scream at you to do 100 pushups and you lie there pushing at the ground and do like 3 and poop out, what recourse do they really have?
It seems to me that if one could withstand all that social pressure, the tactic just might work. I don’t know though, having never served in the military and having no plans to EVER do so.
Along the same lines, what if I had a cohort and we were ‘caught’ fellating each other? This was eons before the enactment and subsequent repeal of DADT…
I’ve heard that if just one person walks into the shrink’s office and sings, “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.” and walks out then they’ll think he’s really sick and they won’t take him.
Leavenworth? Penal battalions? The military has all sorts of ways (or did) of dealing with recalcitrant privates. But usually they would just make you repeat Basic until you passed.
Don’t forget that back then, employers wanted to see your draft card or your discharge papers. If you had anything other than an honorable discharge, it would be very difficult to get a good job. And if you couldn’t explain a 4F draft status, it would be assumed you were homosexual and there were no laws preventing discrimination against homosexuals at the time.
Once you were in basic training or boot camp (in my case), it wasn’t easy to find your way out. We lost one guy who just went nutso one night from the stress, but otherwise everybody made it through. But the Navy was all-volunteer, of course. I would suspect that draftees tried various ways to get discharged, but looking genuinely crazy is more difficult than one would think.
Also, people who didn’t meet expected goals or who weren’t getting with the program were usually “set back” and put through the whole thing again with another company. Nobody wanted to do it all again.
During the Vietnam war, the standards were reduced at one point. They referred to those as McNamara’s 100,000. Some medical and mental issues were ignored by the draft boards. I don’t have any statistics on those individual or how well they did, but I seem to remember it being a major mistake. Does anyone know if many were dropped from boot camp once they got in?
We had a guy that wanted out while we were in training, after boot camp. He drew a picture on a test of a guy hanging himself from a big tree … we never saw HIM again.
Also had an Officer on the boat that told the Captain “If he was ordered to launch a Nuke he would refuse” Never saw HIM again either.
It may be an old wive’s tale, but I have heard from several sources that chronic bedwetters were given a medical discharge. Presumably, if one had presence of mind to drink lots of water at bedtime and guts enough to endure some temporary humiliation he could get a discharge that way. And one of my uncles, in line for the Viet Nam-era draft, achieved 4-F status by starving himself to the point of emaciation. He had a naturally slight, skinny build anyway and was probably near the lower limits of acceptable weight to begin with.
When I enlisted in the (peacetime) Navy, I was initially turned down because I admitted to having once had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. I waited a couple of days, then called the recruiter back and said I’d been re-tested for the allergy and found to be clear. He must have been having difficulty meeting his enlistment goals, because he took my word for it and changed the forms without asking to see a doctor’s report (which didn’t exist). So if a person was sufficiently devious and really wanted out, there were ways to do it.
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