I did not register. I was hoping the number of resisters would be so large that they could never go after all of us. That didn’t happen. However, other than a few threatening letters, nothing ever came of it. I imagine their compliance efforts have improved since then.
As I recall, they only went after a small few who didn’t register and made a public stink about it. One of them came to speak at my university, Ben Sasway who ultimately spent some time in prison.
I don’t think that they come after anyone these days but they’re ineligible for federal student loans or getting a job with the Feds.
I joined in 1989. My father served at the tail end of WWII and I had always been interested in the Army and I loved my G.I. Joe toys so when a friend asked if I wanted to talk to a recruiter with him, I said “sure.”
My dad was a tanker but I really wasn’t as interested in combat arms so I submitted a package and voice audition for the DJ MOS. I didn’t get that so I started looking into communications and saw that Single Channel Radio Operator was a listing that I could go for. I figure single channel would be easier because I wouldn’t have to change the channel and signed. In addition to reasons above I knew I wasn’t ready for college and I wanted the opportunity to travel. I even got Europe guaranteed in my contract.
During AIT I was identified with a handful of other soldiers to stick around for an additional class so I ended up with a Satellite Terminal Operator/Maintainer additional skills identifier. I had orders for Germany, I had shots for Germany, and I was about ready to go when Uncle Sam said “Not so fast.” There was a sudden need for a bunch of soldiers with my MOS in Turkey.
Turkey was kind of fun and interesting. I was 19 and allowed to drink there and I didn’t have a wife or girlfriend back home so there was nobody to miss. The unit was a small special weapons field artillery unit and I was assigned to the HQ detachment near Istanbul. It was weird being in a small unit because there were officers and senior enlisted everywhere – there was a positive side to that as well though because the Sergeant Major recognized me and thought that I stood out among my peers. I also took some college courses on post and got around 13 credits.
After a year and 26 days - it’s a one year tour but soldiers couldn’t leave due to Desert Shield/Desert Storm – I got orders for Ft. Bragg. At Bragg, I was assigned to another small unit, this one was a small Special Operations signal battalion. My slot was basically a base station communicator who had all the radio equipment that a Green Beret would have in the field. I got jump wings while I was there and I really enjoyed being Airborne and in a Special Operations unit. I also medevaced a casualty out of the jungle in Panama while there for a training exercise, probably my proudest achievement in my military career.
The Army was doing some drawdowns by that time so I decided that after 3 years it would be time to go to college. I made the transition but stayed in the Reserves (A Special Forces reserve unit) while in school. I did go to ROTC for one year but it kind of didn’t grab me. Looking back, I should have stuck with it because my Reserve unit got closed down due to those drawdowns. A group of us moved to another unit but soldiers in that unit hated us coming in. I was stuck in a slot that I wasn’t qualified for and I didn’t have PLDC so I couldn’t get promoted. After I graduated, I had plans to move to Atlanta, those fell through, and I went back to my unit but the lieutenant, in a conference with just me, him and a sergeant, told me that he thought that I was a terrible soldier and was lucky that he would take me back after missing drills. The sergeant vouched for me and a captain in another company said that he’d take me in a heartbeat but by that point I really didn’t want to be stuck unpromotable and underappreciated in this unit.
I miss it sometimes; I have a rack of ribbons and I feel like I was well awarded for my efforts, but I feel burned by the BS at the end. Ultimately, it was for the best because I don’t think my wife would have dated me had I still been serving, Also many of my buddies who I served with and keep in touch with through Facebook are off the deep end Trump supporters. I feel that I may have dodged a bullet there.
In college, I applied to the USMC Platoon Leaders Class. I was told I “was not physically qualified” due to my eyesight.
The irony for me was that as a Jr. in high school, I got recruiting letters from West Point for football and Annapolis for lacrosse–I was athletic enough for two different DI sports. But, yeah, my eyesight was pretty bad.
USMC PLC was the program I was exploring as a sergeant when the doc failed my physical for having flat feet, then I went and got my ID to show him and then he said, you must be alright then: PASS.
I ended up deciding to not go PLC. I stayed enlisted.
I did have a family tradition and sort of joined. My grandfather joined the militia (Canadian equivalent of the National Guard) just before WW1, served in the trenches as an infantry officer (first resigning his commission and re-enlisting as a private to get around Sam Hughes’ colossal screwup of the mobilization process), then in the RAF in France, stayed in afterwards and was sent to England early in WW2 but was invalided back to Canada after a training accident, so spent the rest of the war commanding a training battalion. He retired as regimental CO a few years after the end of the war.
My father also joined the militia as an amour officer, but ended up resigning after about 5 or 6 years when his job moved him to another province.
I also joined the militia, in a Signals regiment, and spent a couple of callouts in regular force units, but decided not to renew my enlistment when it was ended, as my job was starting to become more demanding.
Okay, cool, but then why do you say that you sort of joined? To me it sounds like you definitely joined. What am I missing?
I joined the Air Force in 1967. The main reason was that I had already had my draft physical, and had a reporting date…so I went down to the AF recruiter and signed up for Officer Candidate School, which I considered to be a better alternative to being an Army enlisted man who would no doubt be sent to Viet Nam.
Turns out I gained a lot of experience and skills during my service, and didn’t even go to Viet Nam.
I graduated from high school in 1967. I had a student deferment for college. I was in the first lottery and got a high number (313 if I recall correctly). I was probably 4-F in any case as I’m blind from birth in my left eye. I suppose I might have been assigned a desk job if drafted. No way was I going to volunteer.
Aside from a few weeks of basic training and the call-out periods, I just don’t see one night a week and an occasional weekend as equivalent to joining the military as experienced by most others in this thread. My grandfather’s service is very much providing a family military tradition, though.
Mandatory military 10 months service. Served in Mountain Troops (artillery). Had a captain that volunteered for any operation, so been in some action in 97’ and 98’ (including serving as security force in the Paris World Cup !)
The army was restructuring and the pay/life wasn’t enough incentive so opted out after the 10 months.
I may have, but compulsory service was fortunately derogated a year before I turned 18.
Oh. Yeah. I got ya.
What did you do in artillery? I was FDC.
I looked at joining the Air Force as ground crew before enlisting in the Navy. My eyesight wasn’t good enough for the USAF.
I was about ten years old when I decided I wanted to be career Army (tanker). Went to AFEES right after I turned 17, and was accepted; my mother signed the paperwork for me, but for some reason I didn’t get around to returning to AFEES until after my 18th birthday. Since it had been a year, they told me I had to redo the physical. This time I failed because of poor eyesight – they told me I was 20/400 in my right eye. Biggest disappointment of my life. Nine years later I was unemployed, having lost my job at the bakery, and my (fortunately now ex-) wife talked me into trying the Navy. AFEES sent me to an ophthalmologist out in town; he said my right eye was only 20/300; Navy said I had to lose 15 pounds, so I did.
Recruiter gave me a list of ratings to look over. I called my brother, who had retired from the Navy five years earlier, and asked him for advice. Told the recruiter my first choice was crypto tech; he said no problem, but they had enough for the moment so I’d have to wait nine months to go to boot camp. How about data processing? Only a six-month wait for that. I really need a job – what have you got now? He offered me my choice of corpsman, surface sonar tech, of ATF radioman. ATF? “Advanced technical field” – I would sign for six years, instead of the normal four, and volunteer for submarines; in return I would be paid as an E3 starting the first day of boot camp, be advanced to E4 as soon as I finished ‘A’ school, and start drawing sub pay when I got to sub school. More money? I’ll take it!
So I spent 21.5 years in the Navy (21 years, six months and twenty days, to be precise), with ~13.3 years of that on submarines.
No previous military in the family except for my brother’s twenty years, but a few years after I enlisted his son joined the Army on a three-year enlistment, and then after 9/11 my niece spent ten years or so in the Army Reserve (and got to spend a year in beautiful, scenic Afghanistan). My sister told me she had thought about joining the Navy a couple years after my brother did, but he told her he’d beat the crap out of her if she tried – seems he had a very low opinion of the WAVES who were serfing at the time. 
No. My father got drafted during WW II, and was big in his alumni society (a group of veterans from his battalion) but I wasn’t interested for a couple of reasons.
First, it was during Vietnam.
Second, the military and I would not do well. I was in the Boy Scouts, and my dad was a leader there, and had some records stored in my room. I looked up mine, one day. It seems they thought I was a bit of a smartass. I could just imagine what a drill sergeant would think.
Third, I avoided all strenuous activities during gym whenever possible. I’d do fine on runs, but not with 50 pound packs.
I had a draft lottery number of 11, I think, but managed to keep my 2S student deferment until Nixon ended the draft. Shows there is good in most people.
Now, if the Army said “Voyager, given your degree from MIT, we’re going to draft you and put you in a nice air conditioned room to write code, and never mind the basic training,” I would have been fine. But I didn’t have my hopes up.
I’m thinking you mean MEPS? AAFES is the Army and Air Force version of NEX. They run the PX.
I was driver/assistant for the adjutant of the munition section. Providing the two fire sections in shells and the whole battery in anything when on maneuver.
On rank, corporal. What is a FDC?
Fire Direction Center. The ones that figure out the math.
Close, but essentially correct. Fire Direction Control.