So where were you [if you were born]. According to the information provided, this was near the end of the war. This was a long time ago. It shouldnt matter anymore. But it seems to matter. Dan and Dubya got out of service for whatever reason. Al Gore didn't. People think that this is important after all of this time. Therefore it is important. If Cherris information is correct, we belong to the same demographic group. I can start with me. My draft classification was IIA. Hence, I wasnt drafted. How about you?

Best wishes,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), February 07, 2000

Answers

I an guessing you are talking about our last conflict that starts with V. My husband didn't go because he was born with one kidney, boy was I happy. I hade other people in my family who were sent right after the had their health exams, why because they asked questions. Some died, some have never been the same. This also happened to kids I went to school with. I am crying right know thinking of this, it hurts.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), February 07, 2000.

I drew a #7 in the draft lottery so I enlisted in the Navy in 1971. Got as far as San Diego thanks to Nixon.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@AOL.COM), February 08, 2000.

Saigon fell 5 months after my 18th b-day. The only war I ever saw was on the tube.

-- TM (mercier7@pdnt.com), February 08, 2000.

was on the other side of the fence from Hardliner and SOBob and a number of others. Everyone know who Sen Kerry is from Mass?? He got his political start in a little org called VVAW.

I was in Wash in 1971 loosely associated with a group caled AQUAG (A QUaker Action Group) and NECNV (New England Community on Non- Violence) via the commune I was living in (New Swarthmoor). I was a non-violent trainer for the demonstrating groups in the spring of 1971, when I met then (CApt or Lt Col) Kerry.

WHOOPS That makes me a card carrying hippy, right?? Well it did then, but in the intervening years I have found that my beliefs and opinions have changed, most likely due to impact against the real world. I'd LOVE to go back and have a talk with the me-then but I somehow figure that it wouldn't have any effect on the pig-headed son of a ####.

Don't mis-understand, I am NOT ashamed of what I was doing then, because I did what I did then well. I just no longer agree with the me-then.

Chuck, who may have just explained a few things to some and may have just confused a few others

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 08, 2000.

Let's see....I was about 6 or 7 then so I was probably watching the Bannana Splits, Scooby-Doo and the Archies (Sugar,Sugar).

It's funny. I was well aware of the turmoil of the times but it just didn't seem abnormal to me then. When I got off the bus to go to a movie with my grandmother and saw a hundred or so people screaming and carrying picket signs I just didn't think it was odd because I had seen it before on TV dozens of times. I just thought that was how 'adults' acted. VietnamWatergateandeverythingelse was just a blur to me as kid...

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), February 08, 2000.

I was 19 when the picture was taken, in 1973, I had joined a year earlier, had a 9 month tech school at Chanute AFB, Ill. The picture was taken at Carswell AFB, Dallas/FT.Worth TX. It was for the base paper.. it said "Fem Lib comes To Carswell" Cherri Stewart, the first female bla bla bla. I had people stopping me all the time saying things like "they better not put one of you on the flight line, I'll retire if they do! Years later while in the reserves, I was on my back under the belly of an airplane putting in a radar when I looked down the flightline (upside down) and saw women and men working. I had to wonder if that old sarge had retired because of it *grin*.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), February 08, 2000.

It was close. I lived in mortal fear of being drafted when I was 16. But, it missed me. Lucky me?

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), February 08, 2000.

Okay, I'll bite, what picture?

-- Yan (no@no.no), February 08, 2000.

I didn't have ta go, college deferrment and then I lucked out with a big number at the big lotto game in DC.

-- Porky (Porky@in.cellblockD), February 08, 2000.

I enlisted when I was seventeen, served 33 months in country as a LRP team leader and militia advisor, got out in '70, and spent the next 20 years trying to figure out what it all meant. Now, at age 51, I'm surrounded by family, friends, and animals and I know what it was about.

Michael

Airborne all the way, Rangers lead the way

-- michael frazier (mfrazier@pacific.net), February 08, 2000.

Thanks to a screwup in the records at my college, I was called for a draft physical in 1967 (or maybe 1968). I had a high number in the lottery, and flunked the physical to boot, so I didn't have to worry. However, if I had been drafted, I would have moved to Canada, as I had no interest in either killing or being killed by people I didn't even know.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), February 08, 2000.

Uncle Bob:

I was very lucky. By virtue of my birth date I won the lottery. While I had been previously been classified as IIA [anyone remember what that means], I ended-up at the top of the lottery list. I got a nice letter from my draft board [which I have since lost] saying that they weren't going to consider drafting me, regardless of the lottery. A long time and many lost friends ago!

Chuck, you should remember that there was a time in your life when the latest stock values weren't the most important thing. Maybe Jefferson was right!

Best wishes

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), February 08, 2000.

Steve:

Deja..Deja..Deja..deja vu. Same thing happened to me. I passed all of the exams. The university corrected its errors and that was that.

Best wishes,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), February 08, 2000.

Yan:

It should be at:

Thread

Somewhere near the middle.

Best wishes,,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), February 08, 2000.

73? 2nd grade. Reading books on space. Planning to be a pilot so me and my best friend Mona Boyer (who wanted to be a stewardess) could ge explore the "Devil's Triangle". Guess she must have done it, cause I have not heard from her since 77, heh.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 08, 2000.

I already had 5 years of programming experience under my belt in 1973.

As for the "conflict" my lottery number came out 300 and something, so I lucked out. Quite a few friends didn't luck out though, and a couple never did make it home. Many bad memories from those days.

But on the other hand, we had free love, the drug culture, and great rock 'n roll. Lots of good memories too!

Signed, the hippie... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), February 08, 2000.

73 - finishing college after returning from the Army. Enlisted at the height of the war, scared the heck outa my mom.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), February 08, 2000.

My hubby got lucky, when he was called they found he was a nut short of a perfect picknick. I don't know why that mattered to them, but he didn't pass their physical. personally I think he's cute.

-- terry (tm@itsokwithme.net), February 08, 2000.

Born too late to have "enjoyed" that experience, Uncle various cousins over there though. ....served my time (18-24 hour days) in various shipyards and at-sea periods from '78-88; had 16 relatives overseas in the Desert Storm theater, if anybody's counting "people threatened by hostiles"

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 08, 2000.

Robert:

Of course you are welcome. All comments are welcome here. The question was based on a Sam and Cokie question. And a desire to find out how many of our friends remember Nam. It was a long time ago. But some of us remember.

Best wishes,,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), February 08, 2000.

Here's one for Ripley"s...

.....Believe it or not, in 1973, I was at Chanute Air Force base with Cherri. Don't recall ever meeting her, but there is more than a little of those days that slipped by my memory.

-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), February 08, 2000.

Chuck...your close to my heart. DC Mayday moritorium 72. 100% RED blooded american, but war is a human fail scenario. Much more conservative now but I'd side with the Berrigans in a second under the right conditions.

-- PMD (pmd@dot.com), February 08, 2000.

I was gestating.

-- number six (#@#.com), February 08, 2000.

-- Patrick < I left Chanute just before Christmas 1972, what was your school? I wasn't weather or vehecle maintenance so I was...? I still have a picture of the school I tool, developed and printed. I'll scan it one day and post it.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), February 08, 2000.

If you would, please email me the photo - I can't get it from the original thread.

Don't think my uncle was at that airbase at that time ... but he was at so many/went through so many enroute to various firebases as a Army chaplain it's almost impossible to exclude the possibility.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 08, 2000.

I missed the draft by joining the Air Force. I had lucky number thirty-eight, so I was going into Uncle Sam's military one way or another. I decided the best way was to try and steer and not just go along for the ride.

Strangely enough, I too ended up at Chanute AFB for tech school. But I was a year or so later than Cherri and Patrick.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 08, 2000.

Cherri, may I try some deductive reasoning on your tech school at Chanute?

You weren't Weather or Vehicle Maintenance. You went to Carswell; couldn't be from the Minuteman missiles school. You worked with servos; big, ugly, cabinet-mounted ones judging by the photo; not aircraft maintenence I'll guess.

Which leaves me to ask: were you assigned to the railcar mounted flight simulators or to the fixed installation ones?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 08, 2000.

Cherri...

.....After having reread your post, I realized that you said you were there the year before, sorry to have missed you. :o) I was in the jet school for 4 or 5 months. The one thing I really remember about Chanute/Rantoul was the bitter cold. I walked by the Post Office one evening and couldn't resist removing the second "F" in their sign, so that afterward it read, "post of ice," which was rather fitting.

-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), February 08, 2000.

Wildweasel... HIGH FIVE!!! I was on both. We rotated, first on the KC-135 all over the east coast, then the B52 on the west coast. Loved those mobiles. Later went to Homestead on digital F4-E. I posted here early on that I used to practice dropping nuclear bombs on Cuba, I don't think anyone believed me, but it was true. Amazingly I have always told the truth here even whan it sounded unreal. But that is the nature of the field. I was in the first group of four females allowed into the field, we were "test subjects". Two others went to Castle, I went there to take down a B52-H and bring it back to Carswell and put it back together. Then on to Boeing for the same thing, which explains my ability to fly and know aircraft systems as well as electronics and digital. The Sim training was the most intense technical training there was, I loved it, it was so much fun to learn. I hear they run those things with PC's these days, but Boeing and the Major airlines still run the big ones. Do you think I have the background to understand embedded and aircraft systems?

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), February 08, 2000.

Yan,

Here are the pictures. First one is in the cockpit of the B-52-D

This is one of the "analog computer cabinets".

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), February 08, 2000.

Cherri:

I knew a guy a Singer-Link doing audio work (started there doing some work on the C-130 simulator and I would assume that he stayed for a while. This was in 1974.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 08, 2000.

Cherri,

The last big sim project I was involved in was replacing the GP-4B's on the F-4E & F-4Gs with a gang of SEL Concept 32's. It took ten years and cost nearly a quarter billion by the time we finished upgrading twelve E's, four G's, converting four E's to RF-4C's and buying contractor total logistics support for five years.

Now I'm told that the latest GP-4/GP-4B replacement designs are based on a Pentium level CPU. Of course, between the two PCs in our house there's more computing power than all the siumulators and aircraft I ever touched in all my years in the service.

BTW, I knew some folks at Carswell on the FB-111's and at Homestead on their three F-4E's also. Email me if you wanna compare names to see if we have mutual acquaitences. The sim world was never too big, you know.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 08, 2000.