[Moderator Note]
Let’s not politicize this thread with commentary on Bush’s military career. Stick to the questions in the OP.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
No military in history had ever moved two entire Army corps over 300 miles on the time line General Norman J. Schwarzkopf was proposing in the Kuwait war. It was General Barry McCaffrey who commanded those two corps and coming up with the plan now known as the “Left Hook” was his responsibility and he pulled it off brilliantly.
Gen. McCaffrey formerly had been a infantry company commander with 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam from 1968–69. (twice awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart three times for injuries sustained in combat, and the Silver Star twice.)
I just heard Gen. McCaffrey say in a video from the MSNBC Chris Mathews show from yesterday say “there were only 2 regular army soldiers in the company… draftees made up 25% of the armed forces in Vietnam were draftees were 35% of the killed in action but at the infantry company level they were ALL draftees.”
http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/trump-draft-deferment-under-scrutiny-737007171783
I’m not posting this to bring the politics of Trumps draft records here. Actually, I fear they are overplaying their hand. (For instance Bob Kerry is wrong about what a 1y deferment is 1y was a one year deferment. If in 69 he didn’t show up for a check on those bone spurs he’d have been declared draft eligible in 69 which would have made him subject to the lottery, which is what Trump claims. I can forgive Kerry’s mistake in draft classifications because he was a volunteer and in 68 he was busy as Navy Seal in Vietnam earning a Medal of Honor and getting half is leg blow off)
So while it is true that not all draftees ended up in Vietnam it is also true that by 1968 the infantry was almost entirely made up of draftees, and it’s infantry KIAs that drove the draft calls higher and higher.
I’m a Vietnam Era Vet, lots of men were drafted who went to Germany, Japan, etc.
Yes. I have two friends, slightly older than me, who were drafted into the Army. One, like your friend, never left the United States.
The other spent his time in Thailand, on (if I remember right) an Air Force base. He was Army, but had a lot of computer knowledge, and was sort of loaned to the Air Force for something or other. I’ve forgotten the details – it was ages ago that he told me the story. I do remember that he thought he was very lucky.
Is this true?: I recall reading about soldiers who, during the involvement of the US in SE Asia, were sent to, or threatened to be sent to, Vietnam as a form of punishment for various infractions. It may have been used as a threat: the equivalent of WWII’s “Ve vill send you to za Russian front”.
Very few would have the power to do that since the ability to transfer soldiers around the world is usually housed in the bowels of the Pentagon. Maybe if you pissed off a general…
I’m sure it was a common threat, but not one that could be carried out easily. One possibility is that losing a position as a specialist might leave you open to relocation and Vietnam being one of those locations.
The Marines did draft some men, though not nearly as many as the Army.
Ah, the power of the MOS. The father of a friend of mine was a Vietnam era draftee. It was duly noted that he was a union carpenter, and he was sent to Germany where he spent a good chunk of time making pool tables for Officers’ Clubs.
A former co-worker was sitting in California, ready to be shipped to Korea as a newly minted Marine platoon commander. Someone noticed his secondary MOS was Motor Transport and he was sent to the Marine Air Wing base miles behind the front lines where he ran the motor pool and hung out with Ted Williams and John Glenn.
To be fair, the US had a peacetime draft since 1948, so I’d be curious about what percentage of infantrymen were draftees over the 1948-1965(?) period? I’d bet that if you looked at your average infantry company in say… 1955, most of the privates would be draftees then as well, with only the NCOs and officers not being 2-year draftees. I’d bet that even today, most infantry grunts are probably guys doing a two year hitch, albeit a volunteer one.
Historically, line infantry has been one of the highest casualty rate jobs in any army, so it does make sense that draftees would show disproportionate turnover in infantry units in Vietnam.
More factual answers have already been given, but I wanted to point out that the perjorative “Rear Echelon Mother Fucker” was coined for a reason. For that matter, there were also “FOBbits”- people who never had to leave a heavily protected base and actually go out on patrol.
I served in Germany with the British Army in the mid-60s in an Army Missile regiment, armed with the Corporal tactical nuclear missiles. As we needed the American go-ahead to actually arm the missiles in the event of conflict we had a detachment of American troops stationed with us to take care of the warheads, even though we were in the British zone of occupied Germany in Dortmund in the Ruhr.
I got to know the Americans very well and a large proportion of them were draftees, most of whom thanked their lucky stars for the fact they were serving in Germany. A few though, including a tall Texan guy known as (you guessed it) Tex, were itching to go to Vietnam. Tex was always pushing to get an active service posting, much to the bemusement of his friends, esoecially Arnie and Johnny from NY who were always cracking wise about it.
Eventually the Corporal was decommissioned and the Yanks and our regiment parted company so I never did find out whether Tex got his wish.
A brief sidetrack for some historical trivia. During World War I, German soldiers considered the Russian Front to be the “good” assignment. Soldiers who acted up would be threatened with being sent to the Western Front, which had much higher casualty rates.
Didn’t read the whole thread, but re OP:
“drafted to the Marines?” Huh?
Then read the whole thread, for fuck sake. Why should we repeat ourselves because you’re too fucking lazy?
My own experience and observations. I was drafted 1968, which is the year of the largest force in Vietnam. I entered basic in July, went straight to Infantry AIT, got a 19 day leave and was in Vietnam by the first week in December 1968. Guessing, slightly more than half of the lower enlisted ranks, E-5 and below were draftees and the rest enlistees. One point about enlistees is that you could "volunteer for the draft"and have a 2 year commitment , same as a draftee, and had an RA prefix to your serial number, draftees were US prefix. My infantry platoon, around 40 men had several recent college grads who were 2 year RA’s . There were also 2 guys who had washed out of the Warrant Officer helicopter pilot program.
Two friends from basic training were draftees and did not go to Vietnam. One was a high school coach when drafted but had an older brother in Vietnam and he was sent to Korea in Special Services as a baseball coach. There was/is a regulation about brothers serving in a combat zone at the same time. The other guy had gone to ferrier(sp? = horse shoer) and was sent to one of the Dakotas where there were Army mules.
In Infantry AIT there was one guy who was a draftee who was a Registered Pharmacist. He refused a commission because of the extended time obligation. After a couple of weeks of Infantry training, he disappeared. Perhaps common sense from the Army people prevailed.
One observation that surprised me - other than your MOS assignment, RAs and US’s were treated the same, which was pretty crappy at the time but consistent.
One statistic I have seen is that Infantry units were 2/3 enlistees and 1/3 draftees. Not my experience but could be correct if you include senior NCOs and Officers.
Interesting. I did my service in Europe with a British Thermal Unit.
Sorry, just couldn’t stop myself
Yeah, it happened occasionally. Bill McClleland, former columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, wrote a number of times that after he flunked out of college he was drafted into the Marines and sent to Vietnam.
Another draftee wrote a book about his experiences.
My boss from many years ago was in some high-school officer training program; he reminisced once that while he escaped to Canada, all the fellows who were in his group that went to ROTC and became lieutenants died in Vietnam.
(Doonesbury:
“You mean you shot your own officers??”
“Just the dumb ones… mostly lieutenants.” )
One of the fun memories he had was the time he was booted out of the squad at graduation for training and leading the marching band to play the Mickey Mouse Club march during the graduation review.
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the bowels of the Pentagon. The Air Force personnel center (where assignments were made) was in San Antonio, TX, the Navy personnel center I think in the 70’s was in the Navy buildings (not the Pentagon) in DC–what were they called? They’ve been gone for decades–, the Army was so huge especially in the 70’s I think they had several personnel centers around the US depending on MOS.
What’s in the Pentagon are the Service Staffs that control the number of billets for each MOS, and the number of MOS’ billets for certain kinds of units. The Army used to build itself based on blocks of personnel (A Division had so many units of type x, type y,…, and each unit had personnel of type a, type b…) That happens at the Pentagon. It doesn’t go down to invidividual people in individual positions. Retired Army service staff officers can explain this better. I only know the Air Force system with any detail.
I’ve known Air Force personnel to fail out of training, or cross a general. Abruptly transferring one can happen, but that screws up the entire assignment structure including budget, so honestly, really, really rare. Usually what happens is the person gets assigned to a “Special Assistant” position and everyone waits for the normal transfer date to come around to get rid of them. A friend of mine was a Col Select who was in trouble for something. He called me up and said he was a “Special Assistant” to some general and I blurted “Who did you fuck?!”
So yes, this is boring unless you are a master of bureaucracy.