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Kingston,Mi | I volunteered in Dec. 1971 after I received my last draft notice in Oct. 1971. Draft board allowed me to complete my college degree before they took me. Ask if I could volunteer when I went in to ask for the extension, the secretary said NO!, we finally caught up with you and you have no where to hide (not actual conversation, but that appeared to be the intent). Went out of that office with my extension and up the stairs to the series of recruiter office, stopped in the first office, U.S.Army and ask if I could enlist after receiving the draft notice. SFC Allen said I could enlist since I wasn't in the military yet, ask what I was interested in. I said not going to Vietnam and if possible something including diesel mechanics. He said "We have what you want, 52B20 and 52B30, generator operator/mechanic and we send many to be generator operators on Pershing Missile Sites in Germany". So I signed up for 52B20 with assignment to Germany.
Basic training at Ft. Knox in Jan., Feb. and March of 1972 (snakes are dreaming away in hibernation in caves and safe from this Irishman), transferred to Ft. Belvoir as a E2 (promotion to E2 because I was a college grad.). Completed 52B20 in the top of the class and promotion to E3, on to 52C20 and the incentive to top the class was another promotion and either choice of location or going to the 52D20 course. Made E4 and choose 52D20 where the incentive to excel was promotion of 1 grade (unless you where E5 or greater),was the top grad in that class and promoted to E5 9 months after taking the oath.
Between classes you would be assigned to the holdover platoon while the next class filled, I was assigned to work with the operations sgt. as a clerk (we called ourselves Chair born Rangers). The interval between classes normally was about 2 or 3 weeks but between 52C20 and D20 it was closer to 6 weeks if I recall correctly.
After I completed the last generator school, I was ask if I was interested in staying on at HHC 1stBn, U.S. Army Eng. School, Ft. Belvoir Va. as a clerk and unofficial platoon sgt. for holdovers or did I want to proceed to Germany as my orders indicated. I choose to stay in Va., operations sgt. took me to the personnel outprocessing office where the E5 we dealt with fetched my personnel file for the 3 of us to review, then went to get a coffee. When he returned, we chatted and the SFC Akers and I left with my personnel file inside my jacket. Without a personnel file to send to Germany, I remained at Belvoir. After AG 21 did not receive either my personnel file or me, they eventually got some one else to send to the Bavarian Forest's to work on Pershing sites. Since I was never missing, I wasn't AWOL as my supervisor's knew where I was working. After about 6 months , they processed the paperwork to have me assigned to HHC 1st Bn. I worked as a clerk typist, asst. mail room clerk (I had received a top secret clearance while working at the state office of Soil Conservation Service on map compilation for 3 counties in Michigan that were stamped TOP SECRET on each photo, they were taken in 1941), eventually SFC Akers left for his dream assignment, Korea, and SFC. Ramon Simity-Soto took over the operations office. A few months into his assignment, he took leave to search for and bring home a runaway child of his, and I took over for him. When he retired a little later with 29 years active duty, I became the operations sgt. in a student company that had a population of between 400 and 600 at a time. The brass wrangled a lateral transfer from E5 Specialist to E5 Sgt. where I served out my last year as a actual NCO.
So ends my tale of how I frustrated the draft board in Tuscola Co. Mi. | |
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