[AT] OT Draft Exemption Exam

[Phil Auten]

I had several different deferments during Vietnam (never served). First, 
when I registered for the draft at 18 I was still in high school. While 
I was still in high school, I started electronics school. I got a 
deferment for that. Then when I graduated from tech school in '68, I 
went to work for Texas Instruments in their defense division and 
received a different deferment. I was repairing radar systems for the F4 
Phantom, A7 Corsair II and P3 anti-submarine aircraft. When the draft 
lottery came around in '69, I was already 21 and they were only drafting 
19 year old guys. I had a high school friend that was sent to Vietnam, 
He was pretty crazy before he enlisted, but his experiences as a door 
gunner on a Huey changed him drastically. Another of our mutual friends 
went to see him out in California and he said that Butch had become 
pretty anti social and really didn't want to see any of us. He came home 
physically intact, not so much with his psyche.

Phil in TX


On 1/20/2020 5:36 PM, Indiana Robinson wrote:
> My employer kept me out of Vietnam in the mid 1960's but I didn't know 
> about it until I was told by someone later. Then when they did the 
> lotteries in I think 1969 I was just barely too old to be included. I 
> was born in 1942 but the lottery draws started including those born in 
> about 1943 / 44 I believe.
> I had some friends who went and some co workers who went. Some didn't 
> come back... Most who came back were changed forever... One co worker 
> enlisted after his younger brother was killed. I never heard anything 
> of him again. I know nothing of his fate. I know that he had a wife 
> and very young child.
> A friend had gone and came back about 1968 or so and we were best 
> friends for about 45 years. Our kids grew up together and we were all 
> together constantly. Still he almost never talked about his time 
> there. On very rare occasions when it was just he and I he would talk 
> a bit. I never pushed him. I did learn that his job was to sneak way 
> out into the hills and call in target locations, "forward spotter"? I 
> forget. I do remember him once saying that if he had been there 100 
> years that he would never have gotten used to waking up to machine gun 
> fire... He has been gone about 5 or 6 years now I guess. As you get 
> older time gets fuzzy... Diana and I currently board a horse for one 
> of his daughters.
>
>
> .
>
> On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 4:39 PM <bradloomis at charter.net 
> <mailto:bradloomis at charter.net>> wrote:
>
>     As was my father. 1 class short of dual engineering degrees in 4
>     years at NC State, civil and mechanical. He spent the war
>     developing sound tracking torpedoes for the Navy, spending time at
>     sea.  As an engineer, not in uniform. He would have been in his
>     30s. Sadly polio killed him four months before I was born in 52.
>     Brad
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: AT <at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
>     <mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com>> On Behalf Of
>     szabelski at wildblue.net <mailto:szabelski at wildblue.net>
>     Sent: Monday, January 20, 2020 1:12 PM
>     To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group
>     <at at lists.antique-tractor.com <mailto:at at lists.antique-tractor.com>>
>     Subject: Re: [AT] OT Draft Exemption Exam
>
>     My dad was called up for WII, but didn’t serve. His boss made an
>     argument that he was un-replaceable at his job and they needed him
>     above everybody else. He was deferred from serving.
>
>
>
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>
>
> -- 
> -- 
>
> Francis Robinson
> aka "farmer"
> Central Indiana USA
> robinson46176 at gmail.com <mailto:robinson46176 at gmail.com>
>
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