I was in college when my draft number was pulled. The last draft lottery for Vietnam was held on August 5th, 1971 for those born in 1952. My draft number was 73 which meant I would probably get drafted. I was in college in 1971 and so in early 1972 I decided to pick which service I would join versus getting drafted. I started talking to an USAF recruiter, took the tests and decided in April 1972 to join the delayed enlistment program so I could finish the spring semester and have some summer time. It was a Friday in April went I went to the recruiter and took my oath for delayed enlistment. And when I got home that very day, my draft notice was in out mailbox. So on Monday I went to the county draft board office in Castle Rock to say I had enlisted. The lady there said I joined after seeing the draft notice – but I had my delayed enlistment orders so I showed her and she just grumped. The draft ended on July 1, 1973.
So on the morning of August 15th, 1972, I drove to the Denver Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station (AFEES) to start my USAF journey. Since the draft was still going on, there were a lot of draftees that day – I recall there must have been about 100 of us. Most were obviously going into the Army. I remember a Marine Sergeant came in and said if you are a draftee, raise your hand. He looked over the raised hands and picked about 6 big guys and said ‘come with me, you are in the Marines now’. And off they went to become Marines. First military lesson learned – Don’t volunteer without know what it is for. A few of us, about 5 or 6 were going to the Air Force so we were given airline tickets and a ride to the airport for our flight to San Antonio Texas. We landed there after sunset. We met up with other new recruits and were bused to Lackland AFB. We went to chow and then to auditorium where our names were called out with our Squadron and Flight assignments. I was assigned to the 3704 Squadron, Flight 990. Since it was late, our flight was marched to our barracks and told to get some sleep. At 0500 our day started with a banging trash can and some guy yelling at us to get up. He flipped over the bed closest to him, person and all – we all got up real quick.
Volunteering – in basic training there were plenty of opportunities to volunteer. I volunteered to be on laundry duty because everyday I got out of the cooped up barracks to do wash in the outside laundry room. Put everyone’s dirties into one bag – (each was stated with our social security number) and into the wash then dryer. I had to stay outside the laundry room and it was where the phone booths were and no one watched. I smoked at the time so it was a long smoke break and a call if you wanted to spend quarters.
During basic they tried several times to get me to volunteer for language school in Monterey CA. They said I could learn Russian, Chinese, French, etc. but everyone who volunteered was learning Vietnamese – so ‘NO’ – I had a guaranteed career field of Electronics and I wanted the most difficult to get into. Well, they said that was a “Special Electronics Technician” but no one knew what it really was. I said that’s what I want but it took an ‘interview’ to be selected. The interview was scheduled after basic training graduation so afterwardsI went into causal status with a bunch of others. I learned real quick that meant getting up at 5am to see what weeds & seeds manual labor would be assigned for the long hot day. Again, I volunteered for a steady job and so I was mess check for training flights. I would sit in the air conditioned chow hall and when a flight came up for chow, their chow runner would check in with me to get cleared into the chow hall. Not a bad job but instead of getting told each day which chow hall (there were several) to go to, I volunteered to be mess check for the ‘women’s’ chow halls – it was a long hike every day to their side of the base. In basic training males and females were in separate flights and didn’t train together at all. So I had a few weeks of mess check with the girls.
Interview – so the interview day came and I was among about 18 that were interviewed. I was too young of an airman to wonder why a Captain would be doing the interview. He certainly didn’t talk about what the job was all about – I remember him ask if I could climb poles which I thought was strange for an electronics job. I was selected and got orders to Lowry AFB in Denver for training which the Captain said would be about a year long. Again, I was too young to realize a year long tech school was not normal for enlisted training.
WolfPack7 