Glad you chimed in. I enlisted in July 1964, about a month before the Gulf of Tonkin. There were a few deadheads in my basic training at Ft Polk, but some pretty bright guys too. Not much different from the guys in my high school class, some winners, some losers. Most were average.
I was sent to school for an electronics MOS, graduated and could have probably finished my hitch either stateside or Europe repairing tube type computers. I had a 125 on my ASVAB, nothing to write home about, but high enough that I was offered a chance to go to OCS. They pumped my 20 year old brain in 1966 with enough BS that I did it and went to Benning. I naively thought I could make a career of the army as an officer. I graduated, was put in infantry, sent to Vietnam with a Lt Infantry brigade and assigned to a recon company. That was in the fall of 1966.
I had pretty much the whole spectrum in my platoon. A few the NCO's had to keep an eye on, but most were pretty good soldiers and like soldiers everywhere, we were fighting for each other, not the old man, God or country. The only people I gave a shit about were the ones with me everyday. The goal was do our job and live through it. Nothing spectacular, nothing particularly heroic. But frankly, when push came to shove, I couldn't tell the draftees from the RA's. I didn't lose many guys, but I lost a few and I think about them just about every single day. I guess that's another reason I'm more than a little sensitive about criticism concerning them. Everyone lost was a draftee, but they weren't killed because they were uneducated or stupid.
I came back, was assigned to BS jobs stateside at Fort Sam to fulfill the rest of my 4 year obligation and then was told I couldn't keep my commisson. Frankly, had I known that, I would have probably finished my orginial 3 year enlistment and gone home.
The only info I have about the later military was my youngest daughter was in the Seabees. I don't know if it was just the Navy, but from she told me, discipline is a bit different from when I was in. Some stories she told me about her basic made me roll my eyes. Way back when, some of those people would have been discharged on the spot for some of the attitude displayed. I just assumed it was because enlistees were harder to come by, but again, I don't know.
But I'm equally proud of her, she did 6 years, serving some time in Bosnia. She did the combat training right along side the men and held up her end.
Added as a note, I was extremely fortunate in that I worked for a CO that sat me down early and gave me a reality check when I arrived in country. I won't go into it, but I think he was the key to my and a lot of people in that company's survival. It was all about attitude and the reality of what we were doing.
