Getting into the Army

[queenjaneapprxmtly]

I can help! I know tons about Vietnam. :)

I'll try to answer your questions in order.

Odds are they would have been drafted (unless they wanted to enlist), and the draft age back then was 18 to 26. The Army was the only branch of the military that had a draft.

I think they probably would have been sent to a Basic Training center close to where the lived -- I'm not entirely familiar with the names of all of them but I know there's one or two in Texas, California, and of course, Fort Benning, Georgia. Basic Training is about three months, I think, and then after that they would go through AIT -- Advanced Infantry Training. I'm not sure how long that takes; probably about the same.

They'd probably be assigned to a unit after they arrived in Vietnam. Troops left from an air base, usually made stops to refuel along the way (Wake Island or Japan, mostly), and then the two main landing bases for incoming and outgoing troops were Tan Son Nhut and Cam Ranh Bay. They might be assigned to a replacement company first -- that is, they'd be replacements in a certain battalion or company for somebody who had been killed.

They'd probably have to go through a lot of waiting around, signing papers (things about their next of kin in case they were killed, and things like that). And they could be assigned to completely different units; for example Soda could be stationed as far up as Da Nang, whereas Steve could be stationed all the way down near the Mekong Delta. It all depended. I should study up on this, too, lol. I'm more familiar with what goes on during the tour, and not all of the technical things like this. I'm doing the best I can though, lol.

And lastly, the tour of duty for an Army infantryman was a year long. For the Marines, it was thirteen months.

I really am more familiar with all of this than I sound, lol, so if you need anything else, feel free to ask. :)

[queenjaneapprxmtly]

Oh yeah, that happened a lot over there. In fact that would be a neat twist if they ended up together somehow halfway through their tours. :)

[queenjaneapprxmtly]

It's definitely likely. I'm not exactly sure about that, either, but I'd say they'd probably have about a 50/50 chance.

[Tensleep]

Wow, Jane! Great info. You are definitely our resident Viet Nam buff. I just want to intrude for thirty seconds.

I just wanted to add that there was another way to get into the war back then and I actually use it in the most bizarre way possible in one of my stories...but I had a point beyond rambling for once!

Anyways, during the war there was an option given to anyone looking at jail time: Your sentence or 13 months with the Marines. It's been a long time since I researched it, so I couldn't tell you how many guys went for that, but it is an option for your stories.

Jane, do you know anything more about this? I would be interested to hear your thoughts!

See ya in the funny papers!!!

Tens

[queenjaneapprxmtly]

Oh, I'd forgotten about that alternative! I used that for a minor character in my novel, actually. (Was it just the Marines, though? Because I wrote him as being in the Army, lol. I may have to change that.) I'm not sure how many opted for that either, but I know there were a fair few who did that during Vietnam.

Either all of that, or they escaped the draft altogether by going to Canada.

[latch22]

As guilty as I am of it, it's actually likely that Steve would not have been drafted. He was an only child, probably, and there are some interesting deterrents: if you are the oldest son; if a sibling of yours was killed while serving (or if a sibling of yours is already serving... I can't remember but I think that it was the former); if you are the only son (which ties in with the first, since it automatically makes you the oldest by default).

If he was, however, because I could be wrong, then he may have ended up as a mechanic, interestingly. Not everybody went into AIT.

Queen Jane is still the resident sixties/Vietnam buff, here. I'm just her protege. All hail Queen Jane and the awesome knowledge that she hath amassed.

Cheers!

[queenjaneapprxmtly]

Thank you, thank you, lol. I feel honored. :p

But I'm guilty of drafting him too, and you're right, he probably wouldn't have been.

The sibling thing was that, if you were a guy who had a brother already serving in the war, you probably wouldn't be drafted. And if you were, you'd be serving in the rear, and probably stateside -- they wouldn't send you to the front lines. And if there was more than one brother, they didn't draft the oldest. (Which, if you think about it, seems kinda weird, because if there was more than one brother, they both would carry on the family name anyway.)

Or maybe something is just lost in translation there, because it's late, and I don't know what I'm talking about. Lol.

But basically, brothers wouldn't be drafted together. :)

[Nittanylizard]

tensleep said:

Anyways, during the war there was an option given to anyone looking at jail time: Your sentence or 13 months with the Marines.

In March 1974 my 15-year-old uncle was killed in a car accident, along with the 17-yr-old boy who was in the backseat with him. The other 17-yr-old boy in the car and the 18-yr-old driver both survived.

The boy who was driving had taken his uncle's car without permission and was speeding (he lost control around a curve and they hit a guard rail, which was what killed my uncle and the other boy). He was given the option of jail or the service, and chose to join the service. I have no idea what ever happened to him, I don't even know his name, but I've always wondered what he ended up doing with his life.

[Rock]

This is a little (okay, a lot) late, but i havent been around after starting school back up (sorry!).

Anyway - one question raised had to do with AIT, and how long that would take. I can't say for sure what it was during Vietnam, but I can say for sure that currently it is about 6 weeks (in the Marines - I assume its about the same in the Army.)

Good luck with your story! The war stories are always the most difficult (in my opinion) - but the most fun too.

Rock

[zickachik73]

In regards to Tens' post on alternatives, I think it's important to point out that this option was only available to first-time, nonviolent offenders, so our boys (Curtis boys exlcuded), probably wouldn't be given this chance; they'd have to be drafted. Dally, Tim, Steve, Curly and others could have had this option though. (http://www.cga.ct.gov/2005/rpt/2005-R-0200.htm)

Also the lottery was based on birthdays, so the likelihood of Steve and Soda being drafted on teh same day, as I've read in some stories, is very, very low.

[jrc]

I'm sure that the dates that people were drafted are hiding online somewhere...

www.sss.gov/lotter1.htm

That might be useful.

[Tensleep]

Ah yes, I forgot the non-violent offenders part. Thanks, Laura! Oh, and welcome to the forum!

Yeah, one of the biggest stipulations was that you weren't a serial killer, psychopath or something like that. See, I see the the pros of sicking those kind of people against the enemy, but then there's the whole 'keeping them in line fighting for their respective sides and trusting them with weapons' bit. I'm still working that one out...

I do remember reading somewhere that Manslaughter was one of the ones they let over there, which was violent in most cases, but ruled as beyond control and so forth. Thus I used it. I really need to do more research sometimes...

Great info! I look forward to reading it when I have more than a minute! Also thanks for the sites! I love sites! You guys rock!

See ya in the funny papers!!!

Tens

[kdlaxgoalie]

I know that this is sort of off topic but I've noticed a lot of debate agianst Steve having been drafted, so I want to try and clear the air on that issue. I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Hinton said that Soda got drafted and Steve joined up to stay with him. If this is the case then it's completely irrelevent whether Steve was elegible for the draft or not since that's not what happened. Umm... yeah, that's all I've got to say.