It's nice to see that a country has recognized the soldiers that have given their lives, on foreign soil, in an effort to halt tyranny.
You would think that after WWII, and the devastation caused by the war, humanity would have learned its lesson and would avoid any similar situations.
But, the reality of it all is that the powerful will continue to feast on the weak.
I have said it before, but it is worthy of repeating. If the people in power were to put their own lives or the lives of their loved ones on the line, I have a feeling this world would become a more peaceful place.
That in itself is a reason to have a draft, where everyone serves, not just the folks at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder.
Once again you've enlightened us, as I had no idea that this cemetery even existed.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall where there are over 58,000 names inscribed in the granite of the wall, of the soldiers who lost their lives, sparks the same kind of emotions.
I can remember like it was yesterday, sitting around in my friend's basement with six other dudes as dates were pulled from a tumbler. The first go-around of this process was done by writing all 365 days on individual slips of paper. The slips of paper were then placed in the tumbler and drawn randomly.
I was not exposed to the first lottery drawing, as the cutoff was for young men born between 1944 and 1950.
Several of my older buddies that were exposed to the draft had numbers drawn in the first 100. Within a month two of them had enlisted in the navy in order to avoid putting their boots on foreign soil. Another friend of mine just waited for the call. He ended up as a gunner on a helicopter. His copter was shot down six months after he was drafted, and his name is inscribed on the wall.
The first 195 birthdates drawn were later called to serve in the order they were drawn.
The second attempt at making sure that everyone was exposed to the lottery was done by placing all 26 letters in the tumbler and drawing each one randomly. The first letter drawn was "J", which was assigned number 1.
Among men with the same birthdate, the order of induction was determined by the ranks of the first letters of their last, first, and middle names. Anyone with initials "JJJ" would have been first within the shared birthdate, followed by "JGJ", "JDJ", and "JXJ"; anyone with initials "VVV" would have been last.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_%281969%29
The reason for the lottery of 1969 was to address perceived inequities in the draft system as it existed previously, and to add more military personnel towards the Vietnam War.
Between 1965 and 1972 the draft provided 2,215,000 service members to the U.S. military.
With a lot of luck, I was never called to serve.
Thanks for providing all of us with another great post, @dandays.
Draft lottery (1969)
On December 1, 1969 the Selective Service System of the United States conducted two lotteries to determine the order of call to military service in the Vietnam War for men born from January 1, 1944 to December 31, 1950. These lotteries occurred during a period of conscription in the United States that lasted from 1947 to 1973. It was the first time a lottery system had been used to select men for military service since 1942.
Thank you for chiming in, @wikitextbot. First time I’ve seen this bot, tell your creator it’s a good idea.
Dude! I got the chills twice reading this. I don’t know if you’re interested or not, but I think an article type response to @dandays with this type of information would give an entire platform chills. Thank you for being so detailed. I think it would also cause a lot of people to think and I doubt I’d be the only one responding. Man, what a head of knowledge you walk around with.
Brother Sweed, my uncle, he was my mother’s oldest brother was drafted to Vietnam. I didn’t know the why’s and how’s until now but I knew my uncle—RIP Uncle Paul. They told me he was never the same when he got back. The uncle I knew was in a lot of trouble man, a lot! King pin in the Hells Angels, slung a lot of illegal substances, that type of trouble. The last stint he did was a 9 year sentence and then his hay days finally caught up to him about 5 years ago. My point is, I was told he was quiet, to himself, and really smart before that war. God bless him and those 58,000 names—10x more than I saw and the ones I saw were unfathomable.
Man, I didn’t even say thanks for reading this article—“thank you.” Neither of us expected to find that memorial, either. It just ‘showed up.’ I didn’t plan on writing anything based on our trip that day, I’ve been doing that lately, I didn’t take one picture of anything else all day long, but I couldn’t help it once we found that memorial. God bless your buddy—tragic.
It wasn’t until you explained your reasoning for required enlistment when I wrote about Qusay that I thought about it. Although I would be opposed to it if the circumstances consisted of fighting against your own people, I’ve since changed my opinion to agree with yours. As far as foreign turf, throwing yourself on the front lines in the name of 1%, I think a required enlistment is a good idea.
Thank you for this response, sir. And thank you for appreciating the way I put it together, one thing I hope i didn’t paint was blame. I’ll never discredit the people as i am fully aware it’s the people in power responsible for these things. I hope you’re having a great week, Bob, we’ll talk again soon.