I Want You!

July 1, 1970. It was hardly a day that will go down in infamy, but it picked up my world and shook it like a snow globe. Everything I knew was scattered hither and yon. This was the day of the draft lottery, and my birth date came in at number 116. That was well within the target range. I had just started a new job a few weeks before and was making plans for a car and a place of my own.

So what to do? Either find some way out of it, or go. That seems simple enough, but I felt no urge to be shot at. Actually, my options were few. My screwing around in high school had left me with grades so low that any college deferments I might try for were out of the question, and I had no family situation that would keep me home. I was absolutely 1A material. Some of the guys suggested ways I could fail the physical but I figured the induction folks had already seen anything I could think of, and probably then some. I also had no urge to run off to Canada.

So the only alternative left was to at least get a little control over what I was going to do by joining another branch. I had no urges to be cramped up on a boat for long stretches either, so I opted for the Air Force. So, after the couple of weeks it took me to muster up the nerve, I went down to the old health department building and talked to the recruiter.

A week or so later I was at the induction center in Knoxville for my physical. To this day I remember the smell of the place. I don’t know if it was stale cigarette smoke, the medicine, or the stuff they used to clean the place or a combination of these, but it was strong and made a lasting impression. I got the usual pokes and prods. They looked at everything – mind, body and soul – and also look into both ends. And, like I thought, I was definitely 1A.

I rode the Trailways bus back to Loudon and waited for the recruiter to call me with a date. He did. Report back to the induction center on the 15th of November. It felt so strange leaving Loudon. I told myself and everybody that asked that I would be back, but I think deep down, I knew I wouldn’t be coming back. Not to live anyway.

At Knoxville, I stood in a room with 20 or 30 other guys, all going to different branches of service and lifted my right hand, taking the oath that would definitely mean there was no turning back. Out of all those guys, just two of us, me and a guy named George Taylor, were going to the Air Force.

We went to the airport to go to Texas, on what would be my first plane ride. It was an old Southern Airways plane that had the boarding ramp that dropped down out of the rear of the plane. I will admit to be a little nervous on takeoff, but it didn’t take long to realize this was actually fun. We made one stop in Memphis and then went on to San Antonio. On that last leg, the plane was mostly full of guys going to basic training, so they let us have a couple of extra beers even though most of us were underage.

After we landed, a guy in uniform herded us into a room where we sat and sat and sat while they waited on more trainees. They called us Rainbows, a name that became more apparent the next day when we marched around the base in our civilian clothes of every color imaginable, while everyone else was in green fatigues.

Around 11pm, they put us on buses and took us to the base. The first stop was a mess hall called Hell’s Kitchen. The food was excellent, and I was very hungry. Everybody was, and we ate a lot and ate it fast, which was good, because about a half hour later we were back on the bus on the way to our dorm. They put us to bed about 1am and I remember falling asleep not long after I laid my head down. Good thing too, because the next morning would start very early and be very long.