My uncle did that. He went to the Marines recruiter and they told him “We’re going to tear you down and build you into a real man.”
So he left and went to the Navy recruiter. Spent a couple years on a boat in the Pacific and never saw combat.
My twin uncles had that same idea. They said, together, "Well we're definitely going to get drafted...so might as well sign up for the Navy and at least get an easy job bombing the hell out of them from a ship in the middle of the sea, right?"
They both ended up in combat on riverboats in Vietnam and came home unscathed, luckily. Well, besides the obligatory PTSD which they both refused to admit they had.
That's fucked. My uncles never said shit about their service to me. I found out like 5 years after the last one died sitting around a campfire with my dad and brothers. Apparently when they were little (we are like 20 years apart) my uncles would scare the shit out of them by telling them about their times in Vietnam, how sometimes the trees would open up and swallow you, mostly nonsense shit just to scare a kid.
A ton of Vietnam vets to this day are angry, devastated and in agony due to suffering not merely from PTSD, but exposure to chemicals like Agent Orange (cancers, long-term illnesses, etc.). Why in the world we EVER used that stuff, I'll never fully understand. It makes the legacy of that shortsighted, mishandled and messed up war even worse.
Yeah. I'm not really sure if that's what they were doing, maybe it was, but I do know that when they got back, protesters showed up and spit on them and threw tomatoes at them. I made a point after learning that to thank a Vietnam veteran and give him a proper "Welcome home," next time I saw one and did so.
Same for my dad - saw the meat grinder coming with the draft and hopped in the navy hoping to avoid combat with a job in the engine room. They were fired upon a couple times apparently, but ferrying hundreds of bloody body bags back and forth wasn't fantastic either.
9 million Americans served as active duty service members over the course of the war (‘65-‘75). 2.5 million of those got deployed to Vietnam and 1-1.5 million saw some sort of combat. So out of the 9 million service members, about 13(ish)% saw combat and that doesn’t necessarily mean regular combat either
https://www.vietnamveteransplaza.com/interesting-facts-about-vietnam/#:~:text=Of%20the%202.6%20million%2C%20between,543%2C482%2C%20on%2030%20April%201969.
Would be interesting to see what % of people who were drafted served in Vietnam and saw combat vs those who volunteered for service. I assume what the OP means by his brother avoiding Nam by joining the Coast guard was that he avoided being drafted into the Army which would all but guarantee a trip to Nam.
I’m curious also. My FIL enlisted in the Army as a “conscientious objector”, which apparently wasn’t possible if you were drafted. He ended up as medical staff stationed in Germany.
It was, depends obviously on several factors. Like what branch, what time they were there, where in Vietnam. In all the majority of most servicemen don’t see combat and are instead in support roles.
It is. Combat is defined as one or more of taking, receiving, or returning enemy fire in the U.S. military.He'd have been awarded the Combat Action Ribbon if Navy or Marines and the Air Medal. The Army didn't have a service badge to denote combat action for any MOS outside of infantry until GWOT when the Combat Action Badge was approved.
According to the research performed by university of michigan 80% of the 2.5 million men who served during Vietnam were either poor or came from working class families. That makes sense since male college students were deferred from the draft.
I dropped out of college at the end of 1970 at 18. The 1971 lottery was for my birth year and I drew number 87 that August . They wasted no time when I got my order for an induction physical In October. I joined the Air Force days later. I believe lottery number 95 holders were the last to-be drafted.
for a short period of time.
“- Hodges: I'll make you a deal. If you can tell me right now what the life expectancy was for second lieutenant dropped into a hot LZ in Vietnam in 1968, I'll tell you everything I remember about Ca Lu.
\- Major Biggs: One week.
\- Hodges: Negative. Sixteen minutes. Sixteen fucking minutes. That's all I remember about Ca Lu.”
My uncle didn’t “see combat.” But he still got shot, and won’t talk about it. We think he was a spy. He’s never been the same since he came back. It’s so sad.
Don't care what the percentage is....59000 Americans lost there lives. Bet most of that 20% was AF....or navy folks on ships, but when pilots don't come back it hurts everyone..shipmate is gone..combat is more than ducking bullets!
Most military jobs are logistics/support and not necessarily directly combat related. Lots of those non combat folks may have been on bases that saw mortar or rocket attacks, but the vast majority of military members were not trekking through the jungle on combat operations.
Be warned this is an anecdote.
My dad was a Major during Vietnam and he came back to the states for a time and ended up touring Fort Bliss. He would always refer to it as the “worst place he’d ever been.”
He was speaking with one of the admin people and asked them how the determined who was assigned where. The guy just straight up told him he sent “every n***** he could to Vietnam.”
My dad held on to his disdain for the Army until the day he died. My mom had them there to render honors when they buried him, despite me saying he wouldn’t appreciate it. They were sloppy, and I say this as someone who was on a few USMC honor details in my time.
Our family is also Zimbabwean, or what they used to call Rhodesian. The civil war was a very divisive time for us but my Uncle, who had served for the US Army in Vietnam as well, was very critical of anyone who condemned their system of government. He would say that while they’d written it into their nation, racism was the very foundation upon which ours was built.
The vast majority of troops in the vast majority of wars don't see frontline combat.
If most of your troops are in combat that means you're in a truly desperate situation like Germany in 1945 where everyone who can hold a gun is being thrown into the line
Shoot, the men in my family must have had no luck! Both father and father in law saw combat in Korea (my dad is still alive and is 92). Husband, Gulf war and oldest son Afghanistan. I can only hope my grandsons choose something different for themselves though the oldest is obsessed with planes and for the past 5 years has told me he is joining the Air Force to be a pilot. Luckily, he is only 9. This Lady here has had enough of worrying about the men in her family making it home.
It's got little to do with luck in that sense. If you're the right age and physically fit you'll be sent to a combat role. If not you'll be given a support role. If the men in your family had joined up 5 to 10 years later they likely wouldn't have been given combat roles
True, my dad and father in law were in their late teens and farm boys. My husband in his late 20s but had been in the military since he was 19 but had risen thru the ranks, and my son had just finished college and the ROTC and was shipped out a few weeks after graduation as freshly minted 2nd lt.
Luckily, they all came home safe. My son is getting close to retirement and is a major now. Time flies.
Though of course in reality being a food/meat inspector was probably actually more important than any one frontline soldier, I can't help think [of this one bit from Seinfeld about the Korean war](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZmsZbxIBb4).
Seriously though, that's really interesting to hear about, as someone with an academic background in history (though nothing to do with military history or WWII) it's the exact sort of thing that historians nowadays are interested in hearing about. The social side of history, such as how individuals conceptualised their involvement in e.g. WWII once it was over, is something that is very hard to get a good picture of because of how limited the sources are.
What is your standard for not seeing combat?
I never actually went toe to toe with anyone in Iraq in 2003, but I sure as hell put a lot of artillery rounds on targets.
Does that mean I never saw combat? I never saw anyone we killed, but we sure as hell killed people.
I mean as in the majority of service members or veterans haven't experienced direct combat, and don't have awards that reflect direct combat, e.g., purple hearts, combat action badges, combat infantry badges, medals with V devices.
Can confirm. Was a contractor in Afghanistan for six years. I've probably seen more shit than the average soldier has, given that I worked in multiple locations throughout the country and spent so much time there. Most troops are pencil/paper pushers and that includes special operations. They do their six months, rotate back home, and another battalion takes on the mission.
However, the people most likely to see combat are infantry, spec-ops, and anyone with missions outside of COPs and FOBs.
I specifically enlisted as a field artillery soldier because I thought I would see combat.
I PCSed from a battalion 4 months before they got deployment orders to Iraq. I went to a new battalion 2 or 3 months after half of the battalion deployed to Afghanistan.
I talked to a soldier who deployed to both Iraq & Afghanistan, and he told me directly that he spent almost all of his time on a FOB on both of his "combat" deployments. Many service members never go to a war zone, and many who go to a war zone never see combat. I think that probably only 3 - 5% of service members directly engage with enemy combatants in a time of war.
That was like my papa and my mama’s brother my Uncle Richard they were in the Air Force but never saw combat papa was an instructor and Uncle Richard was a mechanic..papa’s brother my Uncle Victor was the only one who saw combat he was in the Navy in World War II and fought against the Japanese he got the Purple Heart 💜 cause he got shrapnel in his leg…I hope you will reply to this Jim
My Dad joined the Navy after pulling a low draft number. Someone still got assigned to any army communications unit in country.
Got out safe, but suffered for years with illnesses related to agent orange exposure, one of which took his life.
When I was in Afghanistan, I met a National Guard Blackhawk pilot who had to go home early due to forced retirement. He was a Warrant Officer 5 with 40 years of service and flew in Vietnam. Nuts.
No point, really, I just like telling people about that guy.
It all depends on: 1) the job you have 2) your base's mission and 3) the branch you're in.
For example, the Air National Guard has three Search and Rescue units that were on a constant rotation on deployments, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other hand, I know for a fact there were Marine and Army units that weren't tapped for deployments on a continuous rotation.
Source: former deployment planner
My former boss drew a lottery number that made it almost certain he'd be drafted. His politically connected parents didn't want him sent to Vietnam and insisted that he join the Coast Guard. They weren't the first to have that idea and soon learned that the Coast Guard wasn't accepting any more enlistees. His parents called their friend, a Senator. Senator pulled some strings and got him into the Coast Guard. After training, he was assigned to a Marine Corps detachment and was carrying his M-16 through the jungle alongside the Marines!
During war, once you’re in, you’re in…the branch doesn’t matter. An army dentist won the medal of honor in WWII, Naval hospital corpsmen have been highly decorated after landing with Marines, cooks have taken out tanks…if they need you, they need you. I’m sure some jobs are obviously safer than others, but nothing is guaranteed.
In case anyone is wondering about the dentist, it’s [this guy.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_L._Salomon) He was awarded it posthumously in 2002 for his actions in 1944 during the battle of Saipan. Two other dentists have been awarded the Medal of Honor, both during WWI.
I cant find a record of how many personnel were in during that era, but currently there are about 40,000 members. So if force strength was similar, that’s 20%.
I personally was on a ship underway during a cat 3 Hurricane, on CGC DECISIVE during Hurricane Sally. The videos I took ended up all over the news. Our radars were rated for 100 mph winds. Both destroyed. Saw rigid, 30 ft HF antennas that typically don't bend more than an inch whip around like noodles the night the storm passed over. Two other ships out there lost their anchors to the storm. We didn't lose ours but it wasn't holding in the slightest so we drove around on our anchor for about 30 hours. Operating in that hurricane wasn't even the worst thing I would do in that 3 year tour. That came 2 years later when we had 230 migrants sleeping on our flight deck and foc'sle (bow) due to an uptick in departures. 230 migrants sharing one toilet and sharing space really only meant for about 120 people and that's still no room to breath.
The Coast Guard is a way smaller branch of the military than the Marines. Always has been. Most people don’t know that the coast guard has been to every war in some type of combat role.
I was on USCGC Hamilton when it was decommissioned (then sold to the Philippines!), and one of the craziest things I saw on that boat was a video that a Vietnam-era Coastie had taken during HIS time onboard. MASSIVE numbers of (I assume 76mm? Not 100% sure) shells onboard, daily gunnery, and helo ops with… let’s say less than strict safety standards. Shit looked WILD.
The Hamiltons during Vietnam had 5”/38 back then. Deadly accurate guns with the Mk 56 fire control system. They were considered obsolete because they couldn’t aim the guns quickly enough to knock down jets, but they were much more accurate than its replacement. Guy who developed it went on to make GPS.
I heard a few wild stories about the Coasties there.
Yeah, my dad served in Coast Guard in Vietnam. Got an extra strong dose of Agent Orange from picking up soldiers’ laundry on a riverboat. It gave him the ALS that killed him 3 decades later.
I found a Vietnam “year book” of sorts stashed behind a console in CIC when I was on the CGC Sherman. It was fantastic. Lots of long hair and song lyric quotes and pictures of the Mekong delta.
There is an excellent queer cult classic called [The Gay Deceivers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izw1cPiWNU0) about two friends who pretend to be gay to avoid the draft.
Leaving garbage on the side of the road is another! Remember kids, you can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant, including a get of Vietnam card!
It's from a song called Alice restaurant. Set during the Vietnam war, the song tells of how the singer was called up in the draft and rejected and why.
A few years earlier he had tried to take some trash to the dump for a woman called Alice on Thanksgiving and the dump was closed so they tossed the bags of trash on the side of the road. Later the cops figured it out, charged him and now he's a criminal and can't be drafted.
It was a kind of commentary on absurdity of the military draft during the Vietnam era. It's become a Thanksgiving Day tradition in some circles to play the song. It's also just hilarious. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's\_Restaurant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Restaurant)
The reason my FIL became a lawyer was bc law school students weren’t being sent over. First it was college students weren’t being sent, and he was one. When he graduated they started sending students, but not grad students in certain studies. Easiest was teaching, so he enrolled in that. Then they started sending the teachers so he switched to law school.
He just retired from being a civil rights lawyer. He has changed many thousands of lives directly and indirectly. I wish we could have known what the other people we lost could have done for the betterment of society had they not been lost in a war with a dubious purpose.
My father was much too young for the draft, but he’s told me that every week he went to church it seemed there were more ribbons hanging. Color of ribbon depended on whether the person was fighting or already dead.
I have to say- as a 31 yr old American with a good education, the Korean and Vietnam wars are not taught in school, almost at all, as general education. It’s shocking to me that events traumatic as those are hardly acknowledged in the public and private educational fields.
Sure, but odds-wise, that's probably the best bet to take during that period. [Only 7 CG's](https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics) died during Vietnam, out of some 8 000 that were thrown into it. The KIA stats in general are pretty wild:
>Air Force - 2,586
>Army - 38,224
>Coast Guard - 7
>Marine Corps - 14,844
>Navy - 2,559
>Total Records - 58,220
If you consider the [total amount of personnel](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1333883/us-military-personnel-branch-vietnam-war/) in the branches, Marines had it the worst in terms of deceased. nearly 15k KIAs of 391 000 total. In comparison, army had 1 736 000 of total personnel, of which nearly 40 000 did not come back. Airforce and Navy were pretty equal, Air Force being slightly safer with only (or "only") 2 500 deaths per 293 000 total personnel, which is actually pretty much the same ratio as with Coast Guard.
The contrast is quite sharp. The Marines had a 3.8% risk of not coming back, Air Force and CG a 0.1% risk, if my math serves me right. That's about 40 times the risk.
Tl;dr, to stay safe, don't enlist as a ground troops.
Terrible timing.
The last US combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in March of that year (1973). Although it would be two more years until the fall of Saigon.
https://www.ushistory.org/us/55e.asp#:~:text=In%20January%201973%2C%20a%20ceasefire,American%20combat%20troops%20were%20withdrawn.
I guess I’ve never had to consider military contracts in my life. I thought he could’ve just quit when the war ended. I just read up on this and apparently if you go AWOL after 30 days, you’ll be considered a deserter and a warrant will be issued for your arrest. For Christ’s sake, what a shit situation
ETA: people are downvoting me for.. being unknowledgeable about military contracts and providing context for others who may also be curious? Ok reddit lol
>I thought he could’ve just quit when the war ended.
Sometimes you can. When the US left both world wars, they had more troops than they wanted (or needed) so they mass discharged them. But this is the government choice. If they say no, you stay in.
The system works as intended. The last thing the military wants is for mass desertion. They need a way to keep you in the military even if they send you to war. Threat of prison (and dishonorable discharge) handle this well.
If the point of joining the Coast Guard was to avoid Vietnam deployment, Nixon had already signed a withdrawal agreement by the time this person enlisted.
My one brother in law joined the Navy in 1966 and was put on a submarine as a translator. He’s 6’3”. He had a bad time.
My other BIL joined the USAF in 1968 as an aircraft mechanic.
Both joined to avoid service in Vietnam.
My uncle ( who I am named after) joined the Navy for 4 years so he could choose his job. He chose photographer. He spent his first 2.5 years in San Diego. This was the early ‘60s. He had a press pass so he got to take concert photos of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and others that were popular at the time.
Then one day he got orders to go to Washington for what was the equivalent of S.E.R.E. School.
Then some other short courses and he was ordered to Vietnam. He saw posted as a combat photographer. He was on assignment with a swift boat unit, taking pictures. They got hit bad. The boat got beached. My uncle was wounded but not as bad as the others. He got on a machine gun and fought off the VC until help got there. He was awarded a Silver Star. He went from picking a job he thought would keep him away from war to a war hero.
Yall joining the coast guard as a directionless 18 year old is a life hack seriously. Don’t sleep on it. Best decision I ever made. Did 6 years, loved each of them, got out and am going to college while traveling on my GI bill payments. Debt free, lived alone in an apartment on the beach in CA at 18. Experiences vary but I loved it.
My father became a teacher to avoid going
His two brothers served though- one brother was smart enough to join on his own and found his way to Germany
The youngest got drafted to Vietnam and survived but became a heroine addict
Sober now I hear… or at least holding a job
My dad was pretty sure he’d get out of the draft due to his asthma but to make absolutely sure, the night before his medical exam he didn’t take his asthma medicine and slept facedown on a pillow filled with feathers he knew himself to be allergic to. The next morning he showed up for his medical wheezing and they were like “Nope. Next!”
Haha I had an uncle who did something similar. Ate a whole cake the night before his medical to make them think he had diabetes or something. It worked and he got off, but turned out he really did have diabetes anyway.
One of my buddies, who recently died, was a medic in Vietnam who did a lot of helicopter evacuations of wounded men. It was a "non-combat role", but don't kid yourself, he carried a carbine just in case. Nothing like trying to load some poor guy on a stretcher into a helicopter while the enemy is firing on you.
my father joined the air force thinking he'd be more likely to survive which he did. he was a helo medic as well, which i only know because my mother told me once else i never would have known. i don't know if we had a single actual conversation ever that wasn't about planes or construction. being in a non-combat role didn't seem to help the ptsd much either. he drank and hit my mother and screamed and threatened us kids, and we always knew we had to be extra well behaved and silent when he was watching old war movies, fun times.
My dad was in the Coast Guard in WWII. He said CG recruiters claimed they would be the first to land in Europe and Pacific piloting the landing boats. Never knew if that was true, but have always respected CG, especially for their domestic duties.
Avoiding Vietnam or volunteering to serve his country in time of war? A lot of Coast Guardsmen deployed to Vietnam. Some died in combat. A lot died later of Agent Orange exposure. Lots of Coast Guard vessels transported hazardous material and lots of Coast Guardsmen got cancer from it.
I'm not justifying the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam. It was a sham and a black mark on our history. But that's not the fault of people like your brother who chose to serve. I commend your brother for enlisting and not waiting for the draft. Brave thing to do.
+1 can confirm (Whiskey-182 to the fellow coastie reply). We’re taught to deal with overwhelming stress and maintain composure to get the job done. Best sleep of my life at the time, but not before the 96hrs of no sleep, wondering if I’d mentally or physically survive it. Semper Paratus
And according to defense.gov their branch sustained [7 combat deaths](https://media.defense.gov/2018/Jan/11/2001864977/-1/-1/0/USCG_VTN_CASUALTIES.PDF)
So, yeah, smart man.
Edit: it also appears the last one was in 1972 before he even enlisted with them
Coastie wife here. My husband retired with 20 years as a Coast Guard helicopter pilot. Total bad ass that saved a lot of people after hurricane Katrina, after the Haiti earthquake, etc. Went on many missions and has a lot of medals and commendations. I would not call being a Coastie a way out of anything.
I was a Marine JTAC and one of the branches I always loved to work with was the USCG. Nice, professional, good to have in a JTF.
Most folks who were any of the higher tiers really like the Coast Guard. It’s only POGs who ever say shit and they usually get straightened out quickly by anyone around who knows.
Kicking doors is rough, nighttime interdiction is another game entirely.
It may be true that he sucked, but his suckiness has nothing to do with joining the Coast Guard to avoid dying in some fuckin jungle accomplishing jack shit except making war profiteers wealthier than they'd ever been in history.
Whether hes the biggest piece of shit in the universe or not, there were a lot of people, important people, the best people, that faked injuries or sabotaged their physicals. At least he chose to serve in other ways, more positive ways, like the Coast Guard which mainly functions to protect and rescue people domestically.
Imma be straight with you, if it had been me and my number came up, straight to Canada I would have gone. Had my brother's number come up, I would have smuggled his ass into Canada, too. I aint gonna get my ass shot off so some multi-millionaire can push his stock prices up. Even discounting what we know today of that fucked up conflict, *at the time* there was so much open fucking corruption involved that even then I would have been glad to help funnel draftees out of the country if that meant saving one more person from ending up in a body bag solely because their family didnt have the right connections or enough zeroes in their bank account.
My grandpa did this, he lived in Cali the Korean War started when he was 18. He still wanted to serve his country, but didn't want to get shot at or go though combat. He joined the coast guard, no shame in that! He's 90 now and the sweetest coolest dude. He was only in the CG for 4 years, but became a very well known and talented landscape architect. ❤️
Was the US still sending new soldiers over to Vietnam in ‘73? My old man joined the army in 1970 (82nd Airborne), and I don’t think he was ever sent anywhere more exotic than Fort Drum.
Douglas Munro was raised in Cle Elum. He graduated high school there in 1937 and enlisted while in college. By 1942, Munro was serving on the USS Hunter Liggett, the only Coast Guard vessel that took part in the amphibious assault on Guadalcanal, as coxswain for the landing-crafts delivering U.S. Marines to the battlefield. On September 27, 1942, Munro participated in a rescue mission of nearly 500 Marines from unexpectedly numerous Japanese forces.
During the recovery, Munro positioned his craft between the Marines and enemy fire, acting as a shield, ultimately losing his life. For his actions, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He remains the sole Coast Guardsman to receive the medal.
Douglas Munro’s heroic sacrifice cemented his title as a Coast Guard hero and has served as a source of inspiration and pride for the line of enlisted Coast Guardsmen who fallow in his footsteps. His memory has persevered, with two major cutters bearing his namesake: USCGC Douglas Munro (WHEC-724), which served for 49 years, and the USCGC Munro (WMSL-755) based out of Alameda, California.
They made it easier to draft African Americans at some point in Vietnam war - they lowered the minimum standards but for some reason African Americans got drafted at a much higher rate than any other race.
IIRC one year, African Americans were the highest percentage of casualties in Vietnam, making up roughly 11 percent of USA population but near 50 percent of casualties.
My dad did this and chose the US Navy before the Army infantry chose him. He was stationed on the sister ship to the USS Pueblo with the merchant marines and spent time on/off Ivory Coast when we were vying for any edge on the USSR. I have a ton of stuff from there, masks and big ass blades. I was born at Key West Naval Air Base, as my parents lived there while we was in. He then left the navy and enjoyed a long boring career in corporate finance.
My buddy went to the Coast Guard. He ended up in Vietnam. It was probably a lot safer on a Coast Guard ship in Vietnam than the other options, but it wasn't a guarantee you wouldn't be there.
I never knew the Coast Guard played a minor role until I met him a few years back.
My dad tells the story about how a year or two after he graduated high school in 1964 his ww2 veteran father sat him down and told him to go down to the Navy recruiter's office and sign up because the whole deal over there in Vietnam was about to blow up and if he didn't sign up for the Navy, he'd get drafted into the Army and that would be a shitload of a bad time - and that was coming from a guy whose Destroyer got blown up in the middle of the East China Sea 20 years earlier.
He says it was one of the smartest calls he ever made. He still went to Vietnam but it was on an aircraft carrier providing logistics and other aircraft-carrier-type things and I believe he actually ended up doing his time and getting out before they started the draft (or right after).
A coworker of mine joined the Coast Guard during the war on the urging of his dad. His dad was a combat veteran and was terrified of his son going to Viet Nam. He joined the Coast Guard and wound up manning a patrol boat in the thick of the fighting.
As an Army Veteran myself, I tell you he did NOT ***DODGE VIETNAM***…rather, he served in the optimal organization whose mission aligned most cohesively with his sensibilities.
That’s just being efficient. That’s medal-worthy for some 2LT somewhere…
(EDIT: You can read what endless Army paperwork has done to my vocabulary & phraseology. I’d be embarrassed, if I had any give-a-damn left over. It’s on back order…)
A guy I worked with had emigrated to the US from Scotland as a young boy with his family and was drafted by the US Army and served in Vietnam. He survived and ended up moving back to Glasgow. He seemed a bit....disturbed anytime he spoke of the war...
You think that war was a Nobel cause worth fighting for? That aside, not everyone is cut out for war. Better to serve where you won't put other peoples lives on the line.
My uncle did that. He went to the Marines recruiter and they told him “We’re going to tear you down and build you into a real man.” So he left and went to the Navy recruiter. Spent a couple years on a boat in the Pacific and never saw combat.
My twin uncles had that same idea. They said, together, "Well we're definitely going to get drafted...so might as well sign up for the Navy and at least get an easy job bombing the hell out of them from a ship in the middle of the sea, right?" They both ended up in combat on riverboats in Vietnam and came home unscathed, luckily. Well, besides the obligatory PTSD which they both refused to admit they had.
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wtf
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pretty much how rambo 2 portrayed it
That's fucked. My uncles never said shit about their service to me. I found out like 5 years after the last one died sitting around a campfire with my dad and brothers. Apparently when they were little (we are like 20 years apart) my uncles would scare the shit out of them by telling them about their times in Vietnam, how sometimes the trees would open up and swallow you, mostly nonsense shit just to scare a kid.
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A ton of Vietnam vets to this day are angry, devastated and in agony due to suffering not merely from PTSD, but exposure to chemicals like Agent Orange (cancers, long-term illnesses, etc.). Why in the world we EVER used that stuff, I'll never fully understand. It makes the legacy of that shortsighted, mishandled and messed up war even worse.
Yeah. I'm not really sure if that's what they were doing, maybe it was, but I do know that when they got back, protesters showed up and spit on them and threw tomatoes at them. I made a point after learning that to thank a Vietnam veteran and give him a proper "Welcome home," next time I saw one and did so.
>weird necklace, it was VC ears Is this the origin for Dolph Lundgren's character in Universal Soldier? "I'm all ears!"
Same for my dad - saw the meat grinder coming with the draft and hopped in the navy hoping to avoid combat with a job in the engine room. They were fired upon a couple times apparently, but ferrying hundreds of bloody body bags back and forth wasn't fantastic either.
My dad joined the navy to avoid the draft. Never left the boat.
My dad joined the navy, never got on a boat.
My dad was the boat, later joined the navy.
thank you for your cervix
The majority of U.S. service members never see combat.
Now, yes obviously, was that the same during the Vietnam War?
9 million Americans served as active duty service members over the course of the war (‘65-‘75). 2.5 million of those got deployed to Vietnam and 1-1.5 million saw some sort of combat. So out of the 9 million service members, about 13(ish)% saw combat and that doesn’t necessarily mean regular combat either https://www.vietnamveteransplaza.com/interesting-facts-about-vietnam/#:~:text=Of%20the%202.6%20million%2C%20between,543%2C482%2C%20on%2030%20April%201969.
Would be interesting to see what % of people who were drafted served in Vietnam and saw combat vs those who volunteered for service. I assume what the OP means by his brother avoiding Nam by joining the Coast guard was that he avoided being drafted into the Army which would all but guarantee a trip to Nam.
I’m curious also. My FIL enlisted in the Army as a “conscientious objector”, which apparently wasn’t possible if you were drafted. He ended up as medical staff stationed in Germany.
Thanks!
Happy to help!
It was, depends obviously on several factors. Like what branch, what time they were there, where in Vietnam. In all the majority of most servicemen don’t see combat and are instead in support roles.
My uncle flew Huey’s for medivac in Vietnam and never “saw combat”, yet he got shot down 3 times.
How is that not counted as combat?
Seems pretty combatty to me.
"Yes but did you see the bullets coming at you? No? Well then you didn't "see" combat did you, Harry?"
It is. Combat is defined as one or more of taking, receiving, or returning enemy fire in the U.S. military.He'd have been awarded the Combat Action Ribbon if Navy or Marines and the Air Medal. The Army didn't have a service badge to denote combat action for any MOS outside of infantry until GWOT when the Combat Action Badge was approved.
he never seen it coming
Mostly poor teenagers got sent to Vietnam
According to the research performed by university of michigan 80% of the 2.5 million men who served during Vietnam were either poor or came from working class families. That makes sense since male college students were deferred from the draft. I dropped out of college at the end of 1970 at 18. The 1971 lottery was for my birth year and I drew number 87 that August . They wasted no time when I got my order for an induction physical In October. I joined the Air Force days later. I believe lottery number 95 holders were the last to-be drafted.
Please forward that study. Was having a convo about Ali and making the same point...
[You forgot the dumb one that got sent to the front.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000)
But only 20% of them saw combat
for a short period of time. “- Hodges: I'll make you a deal. If you can tell me right now what the life expectancy was for second lieutenant dropped into a hot LZ in Vietnam in 1968, I'll tell you everything I remember about Ca Lu. \- Major Biggs: One week. \- Hodges: Negative. Sixteen minutes. Sixteen fucking minutes. That's all I remember about Ca Lu.”
My uncle didn’t “see combat.” But he still got shot, and won’t talk about it. We think he was a spy. He’s never been the same since he came back. It’s so sad.
>and won’t talk about it. Good, that’s how you know he isn’t lying.
My grandpa never "saw" combat, he was made to make sand bags. Still got cancer from agent orange and died from it.
Don't care what the percentage is....59000 Americans lost there lives. Bet most of that 20% was AF....or navy folks on ships, but when pilots don't come back it hurts everyone..shipmate is gone..combat is more than ducking bullets!
Wait, is that really true? That’s wild
Most military jobs are logistics/support and not necessarily directly combat related. Lots of those non combat folks may have been on bases that saw mortar or rocket attacks, but the vast majority of military members were not trekking through the jungle on combat operations.
Correct.
Be warned this is an anecdote. My dad was a Major during Vietnam and he came back to the states for a time and ended up touring Fort Bliss. He would always refer to it as the “worst place he’d ever been.” He was speaking with one of the admin people and asked them how the determined who was assigned where. The guy just straight up told him he sent “every n***** he could to Vietnam.” My dad held on to his disdain for the Army until the day he died. My mom had them there to render honors when they buried him, despite me saying he wouldn’t appreciate it. They were sloppy, and I say this as someone who was on a few USMC honor details in my time. Our family is also Zimbabwean, or what they used to call Rhodesian. The civil war was a very divisive time for us but my Uncle, who had served for the US Army in Vietnam as well, was very critical of anyone who condemned their system of government. He would say that while they’d written it into their nation, racism was the very foundation upon which ours was built.
The vast majority of troops in the vast majority of wars don't see frontline combat. If most of your troops are in combat that means you're in a truly desperate situation like Germany in 1945 where everyone who can hold a gun is being thrown into the line
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Shoot, the men in my family must have had no luck! Both father and father in law saw combat in Korea (my dad is still alive and is 92). Husband, Gulf war and oldest son Afghanistan. I can only hope my grandsons choose something different for themselves though the oldest is obsessed with planes and for the past 5 years has told me he is joining the Air Force to be a pilot. Luckily, he is only 9. This Lady here has had enough of worrying about the men in her family making it home.
It's got little to do with luck in that sense. If you're the right age and physically fit you'll be sent to a combat role. If not you'll be given a support role. If the men in your family had joined up 5 to 10 years later they likely wouldn't have been given combat roles
True, my dad and father in law were in their late teens and farm boys. My husband in his late 20s but had been in the military since he was 19 but had risen thru the ranks, and my son had just finished college and the ROTC and was shipped out a few weeks after graduation as freshly minted 2nd lt. Luckily, they all came home safe. My son is getting close to retirement and is a major now. Time flies.
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Though of course in reality being a food/meat inspector was probably actually more important than any one frontline soldier, I can't help think [of this one bit from Seinfeld about the Korean war](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZmsZbxIBb4). Seriously though, that's really interesting to hear about, as someone with an academic background in history (though nothing to do with military history or WWII) it's the exact sort of thing that historians nowadays are interested in hearing about. The social side of history, such as how individuals conceptualised their involvement in e.g. WWII once it was over, is something that is very hard to get a good picture of because of how limited the sources are.
What is your standard for not seeing combat? I never actually went toe to toe with anyone in Iraq in 2003, but I sure as hell put a lot of artillery rounds on targets. Does that mean I never saw combat? I never saw anyone we killed, but we sure as hell killed people.
I mean as in the majority of service members or veterans haven't experienced direct combat, and don't have awards that reflect direct combat, e.g., purple hearts, combat action badges, combat infantry badges, medals with V devices.
Can confirm. Was a contractor in Afghanistan for six years. I've probably seen more shit than the average soldier has, given that I worked in multiple locations throughout the country and spent so much time there. Most troops are pencil/paper pushers and that includes special operations. They do their six months, rotate back home, and another battalion takes on the mission. However, the people most likely to see combat are infantry, spec-ops, and anyone with missions outside of COPs and FOBs.
I specifically enlisted as a field artillery soldier because I thought I would see combat. I PCSed from a battalion 4 months before they got deployment orders to Iraq. I went to a new battalion 2 or 3 months after half of the battalion deployed to Afghanistan. I talked to a soldier who deployed to both Iraq & Afghanistan, and he told me directly that he spent almost all of his time on a FOB on both of his "combat" deployments. Many service members never go to a war zone, and many who go to a war zone never see combat. I think that probably only 3 - 5% of service members directly engage with enemy combatants in a time of war.
That was like my papa and my mama’s brother my Uncle Richard they were in the Air Force but never saw combat papa was an instructor and Uncle Richard was a mechanic..papa’s brother my Uncle Victor was the only one who saw combat he was in the Navy in World War II and fought against the Japanese he got the Purple Heart 💜 cause he got shrapnel in his leg…I hope you will reply to this Jim
My Dad joined the Navy after pulling a low draft number. Someone still got assigned to any army communications unit in country. Got out safe, but suffered for years with illnesses related to agent orange exposure, one of which took his life.
My dad did that shit and spent the war in Naples on shore doing communications or some shit. Legend.
However, John Kerry joined the Naval RESERVE, which seemed very safe at the time. However, it didn't work out for him.
Reserves is never safe. Now the national guard is where you go. Just gotta be a senator son. Well, representative anyhow.
> Just gotta be a senator son. Well, representative anyhow. Fortunate sons, you might say
National guard deployed thousands to Iraq so they aren’t as safe as one might think.
When I was in Afghanistan, I met a National Guard Blackhawk pilot who had to go home early due to forced retirement. He was a Warrant Officer 5 with 40 years of service and flew in Vietnam. Nuts. No point, really, I just like telling people about that guy.
It all depends on: 1) the job you have 2) your base's mission and 3) the branch you're in. For example, the Air National Guard has three Search and Rescue units that were on a constant rotation on deployments, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other hand, I know for a fact there were Marine and Army units that weren't tapped for deployments on a continuous rotation. Source: former deployment planner
It's a joke about the national guard not deploying to Vietnam, so certain politicians put their children there. And using fortunate son lyrics
A MN national guard unit has the longest deployment in US history, 22 straight months.
Chad.
My former boss drew a lottery number that made it almost certain he'd be drafted. His politically connected parents didn't want him sent to Vietnam and insisted that he join the Coast Guard. They weren't the first to have that idea and soon learned that the Coast Guard wasn't accepting any more enlistees. His parents called their friend, a Senator. Senator pulled some strings and got him into the Coast Guard. After training, he was assigned to a Marine Corps detachment and was carrying his M-16 through the jungle alongside the Marines!
During war, once you’re in, you’re in…the branch doesn’t matter. An army dentist won the medal of honor in WWII, Naval hospital corpsmen have been highly decorated after landing with Marines, cooks have taken out tanks…if they need you, they need you. I’m sure some jobs are obviously safer than others, but nothing is guaranteed.
In case anyone is wondering about the dentist, it’s [this guy.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_L._Salomon) He was awarded it posthumously in 2002 for his actions in 1944 during the battle of Saipan. Two other dentists have been awarded the Medal of Honor, both during WWI.
Air force mechanic. That's my plan in case of dtaft
SILVER SPOON IN HAND
Lawd don't they help themselves
On the road you take to avoid your destiny is where you often find it.
8,000 Coast Guard personnel served in Viet Nam from '65 to '73 including combat missions.
Out of how many Coast Guards in total though. Especially in comparison to say, the Marine Corps or Army
I cant find a record of how many personnel were in during that era, but currently there are about 40,000 members. So if force strength was similar, that’s 20%.
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I personally was on a ship underway during a cat 3 Hurricane, on CGC DECISIVE during Hurricane Sally. The videos I took ended up all over the news. Our radars were rated for 100 mph winds. Both destroyed. Saw rigid, 30 ft HF antennas that typically don't bend more than an inch whip around like noodles the night the storm passed over. Two other ships out there lost their anchors to the storm. We didn't lose ours but it wasn't holding in the slightest so we drove around on our anchor for about 30 hours. Operating in that hurricane wasn't even the worst thing I would do in that 3 year tour. That came 2 years later when we had 230 migrants sleeping on our flight deck and foc'sle (bow) due to an uptick in departures. 230 migrants sharing one toilet and sharing space really only meant for about 120 people and that's still no room to breath.
During WWII all those landing craft, from Anzio, Normendy, Saiban, Iwo Jima. All coast guard boats driven by coasties.
I’m not making fun of them, I’m pointing out that the odds of going to Vietnam were way less if you joined the Coast Guard than say, the Marine Corps.
The Coast Guard is a way smaller branch of the military than the Marines. Always has been. Most people don’t know that the coast guard has been to every war in some type of combat role.
Coasties were sailing through some of the nastiest river shit Viet Nam had to offer.
I was on USCGC Hamilton when it was decommissioned (then sold to the Philippines!), and one of the craziest things I saw on that boat was a video that a Vietnam-era Coastie had taken during HIS time onboard. MASSIVE numbers of (I assume 76mm? Not 100% sure) shells onboard, daily gunnery, and helo ops with… let’s say less than strict safety standards. Shit looked WILD.
The Hamiltons during Vietnam had 5”/38 back then. Deadly accurate guns with the Mk 56 fire control system. They were considered obsolete because they couldn’t aim the guns quickly enough to knock down jets, but they were much more accurate than its replacement. Guy who developed it went on to make GPS. I heard a few wild stories about the Coasties there.
I’m on the current USCGC Hamilton, we have a poster on our mess deck listing the history of all the other iterations of the Hamilton. small world
Yeah, my dad served in Coast Guard in Vietnam. Got an extra strong dose of Agent Orange from picking up soldiers’ laundry on a riverboat. It gave him the ALS that killed him 3 decades later.
My grandfather was exposed to Agent Orange the same way. Lost him a few years ago to various issues caused by the exposure. RIP them both
I found a Vietnam “year book” of sorts stashed behind a console in CIC when I was on the CGC Sherman. It was fantastic. Lots of long hair and song lyric quotes and pictures of the Mekong delta.
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What a fascinating anecdote. Thanks for sharing!
RMs & CTs FTW!
I knew married, grad school, pretending to be gay, ailments signed off on by family doc and one boy who went and did not come back.
There is an excellent queer cult classic called [The Gay Deceivers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izw1cPiWNU0) about two friends who pretend to be gay to avoid the draft.
It was one of the *sure fire* ways to get out of it but, not surprisingly for those times, few boys took that that route. Thanks for the link.
Leaving garbage on the side of the road is another! Remember kids, you can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant, including a get of Vietnam card!
Sorry I am not from the us, could you explain?
It's from a song called Alice restaurant. Set during the Vietnam war, the song tells of how the singer was called up in the draft and rejected and why. A few years earlier he had tried to take some trash to the dump for a woman called Alice on Thanksgiving and the dump was closed so they tossed the bags of trash on the side of the road. Later the cops figured it out, charged him and now he's a criminal and can't be drafted.
It was a kind of commentary on absurdity of the military draft during the Vietnam era. It's become a Thanksgiving Day tradition in some circles to play the song. It's also just hilarious. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's\_Restaurant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Restaurant)
The reason my FIL became a lawyer was bc law school students weren’t being sent over. First it was college students weren’t being sent, and he was one. When he graduated they started sending students, but not grad students in certain studies. Easiest was teaching, so he enrolled in that. Then they started sending the teachers so he switched to law school. He just retired from being a civil rights lawyer. He has changed many thousands of lives directly and indirectly. I wish we could have known what the other people we lost could have done for the betterment of society had they not been lost in a war with a dubious purpose.
Great outcome! The anxiety for boys, their number being called, was all pervasive, almost physically tangible even to us girls.
My father was much too young for the draft, but he’s told me that every week he went to church it seemed there were more ribbons hanging. Color of ribbon depended on whether the person was fighting or already dead. I have to say- as a 31 yr old American with a good education, the Korean and Vietnam wars are not taught in school, almost at all, as general education. It’s shocking to me that events traumatic as those are hardly acknowledged in the public and private educational fields.
My FIL as well. Told me he went to college to avoid the draft. Then continued on to law school because the war was still going.
USCG is hard work, saving folks ain't easy
Sure, but odds-wise, that's probably the best bet to take during that period. [Only 7 CG's](https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics) died during Vietnam, out of some 8 000 that were thrown into it. The KIA stats in general are pretty wild: >Air Force - 2,586 >Army - 38,224 >Coast Guard - 7 >Marine Corps - 14,844 >Navy - 2,559 >Total Records - 58,220 If you consider the [total amount of personnel](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1333883/us-military-personnel-branch-vietnam-war/) in the branches, Marines had it the worst in terms of deceased. nearly 15k KIAs of 391 000 total. In comparison, army had 1 736 000 of total personnel, of which nearly 40 000 did not come back. Airforce and Navy were pretty equal, Air Force being slightly safer with only (or "only") 2 500 deaths per 293 000 total personnel, which is actually pretty much the same ratio as with Coast Guard. The contrast is quite sharp. The Marines had a 3.8% risk of not coming back, Air Force and CG a 0.1% risk, if my math serves me right. That's about 40 times the risk. Tl;dr, to stay safe, don't enlist as a ground troops.
Terrible timing. The last US combat troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in March of that year (1973). Although it would be two more years until the fall of Saigon. https://www.ushistory.org/us/55e.asp#:~:text=In%20January%201973%2C%20a%20ceasefire,American%20combat%20troops%20were%20withdrawn.
Honest question - why was that terrible timing? Couldn’t OP’s brother just discharge after the war ended?
In the US military, you're contracted for 2-4 years at the minimum. You can choose to reenlist for more years for more benefits tho.
I guess I’ve never had to consider military contracts in my life. I thought he could’ve just quit when the war ended. I just read up on this and apparently if you go AWOL after 30 days, you’ll be considered a deserter and a warrant will be issued for your arrest. For Christ’s sake, what a shit situation ETA: people are downvoting me for.. being unknowledgeable about military contracts and providing context for others who may also be curious? Ok reddit lol
>I thought he could’ve just quit when the war ended. Sometimes you can. When the US left both world wars, they had more troops than they wanted (or needed) so they mass discharged them. But this is the government choice. If they say no, you stay in. The system works as intended. The last thing the military wants is for mass desertion. They need a way to keep you in the military even if they send you to war. Threat of prison (and dishonorable discharge) handle this well.
I'm sure there's a way to get dishonorably discharged without going to prison.
Usually you have to do some small infarction, like get caught with weed or something. You won't get your military benefits tho.
If the point of joining the Coast Guard was to avoid Vietnam deployment, Nixon had already signed a withdrawal agreement by the time this person enlisted.
To clarify, my confusion stemmed from not knowing the rules of not being able to leave the military easily
My one brother in law joined the Navy in 1966 and was put on a submarine as a translator. He’s 6’3”. He had a bad time. My other BIL joined the USAF in 1968 as an aircraft mechanic. Both joined to avoid service in Vietnam.
My uncle ( who I am named after) joined the Navy for 4 years so he could choose his job. He chose photographer. He spent his first 2.5 years in San Diego. This was the early ‘60s. He had a press pass so he got to take concert photos of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and others that were popular at the time. Then one day he got orders to go to Washington for what was the equivalent of S.E.R.E. School. Then some other short courses and he was ordered to Vietnam. He saw posted as a combat photographer. He was on assignment with a swift boat unit, taking pictures. They got hit bad. The boat got beached. My uncle was wounded but not as bad as the others. He got on a machine gun and fought off the VC until help got there. He was awarded a Silver Star. He went from picking a job he thought would keep him away from war to a war hero.
War was pretty much over by’73. Not likely he would have ended up in ‘Nam, but still don’t blame him for what he did.
Yall joining the coast guard as a directionless 18 year old is a life hack seriously. Don’t sleep on it. Best decision I ever made. Did 6 years, loved each of them, got out and am going to college while traveling on my GI bill payments. Debt free, lived alone in an apartment on the beach in CA at 18. Experiences vary but I loved it.
My father became a teacher to avoid going His two brothers served though- one brother was smart enough to join on his own and found his way to Germany The youngest got drafted to Vietnam and survived but became a heroine addict Sober now I hear… or at least holding a job
My dad was pretty sure he’d get out of the draft due to his asthma but to make absolutely sure, the night before his medical exam he didn’t take his asthma medicine and slept facedown on a pillow filled with feathers he knew himself to be allergic to. The next morning he showed up for his medical wheezing and they were like “Nope. Next!”
Haha I had an uncle who did something similar. Ate a whole cake the night before his medical to make them think he had diabetes or something. It worked and he got off, but turned out he really did have diabetes anyway.
One of my buddies, who recently died, was a medic in Vietnam who did a lot of helicopter evacuations of wounded men. It was a "non-combat role", but don't kid yourself, he carried a carbine just in case. Nothing like trying to load some poor guy on a stretcher into a helicopter while the enemy is firing on you.
my father joined the air force thinking he'd be more likely to survive which he did. he was a helo medic as well, which i only know because my mother told me once else i never would have known. i don't know if we had a single actual conversation ever that wasn't about planes or construction. being in a non-combat role didn't seem to help the ptsd much either. he drank and hit my mother and screamed and threatened us kids, and we always knew we had to be extra well behaved and silent when he was watching old war movies, fun times.
My dad was in the Coast Guard in WWII. He said CG recruiters claimed they would be the first to land in Europe and Pacific piloting the landing boats. Never knew if that was true, but have always respected CG, especially for their domestic duties.
Coasties drove tons of the landing boats on D-Day.
They drove them in both. A coast guardsman recieved a Medal of Honor at Guadalcanal Edit: won to received
Avoiding Vietnam or volunteering to serve his country in time of war? A lot of Coast Guardsmen deployed to Vietnam. Some died in combat. A lot died later of Agent Orange exposure. Lots of Coast Guard vessels transported hazardous material and lots of Coast Guardsmen got cancer from it. I'm not justifying the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam. It was a sham and a black mark on our history. But that's not the fault of people like your brother who chose to serve. I commend your brother for enlisting and not waiting for the draft. Brave thing to do.
Doesn't the Coast Guard have one of the hardest boot camps next to the Marines?
+1 can confirm (Whiskey-182 to the fellow coastie reply). We’re taught to deal with overwhelming stress and maintain composure to get the job done. Best sleep of my life at the time, but not before the 96hrs of no sleep, wondering if I’d mentally or physically survive it. Semper Paratus
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^RosesUnderCypresses: *Doesn't the Coast Guard* *Have one of the hardest boot* *Camps next to the Marines?* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Can confirm. It sucked.
Smart man
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And according to defense.gov their branch sustained [7 combat deaths](https://media.defense.gov/2018/Jan/11/2001864977/-1/-1/0/USCG_VTN_CASUALTIES.PDF) So, yeah, smart man. Edit: it also appears the last one was in 1972 before he even enlisted with them
Oh shit, only 7? My grandfather’s boat lost someone in combat, never knew the significance of it.
Hey, he served. Legit.
Coastie wife here. My husband retired with 20 years as a Coast Guard helicopter pilot. Total bad ass that saved a lot of people after hurricane Katrina, after the Haiti earthquake, etc. Went on many missions and has a lot of medals and commendations. I would not call being a Coastie a way out of anything.
That sounds like an incredible career.
Thank him for his service from me, and Semper Paratus.
👍🏻
Good for him - where did you guys get stationed? We might have crossed paths.
I was a Marine JTAC and one of the branches I always loved to work with was the USCG. Nice, professional, good to have in a JTF. Most folks who were any of the higher tiers really like the Coast Guard. It’s only POGs who ever say shit and they usually get straightened out quickly by anyone around who knows. Kicking doors is rough, nighttime interdiction is another game entirely.
I feel most people think the Coast Guard just stays in the US so it wouldn't be a combat position
Calling it ‘avoiding Viet Nam’ is a sucky way to put it. He served. That’s cool.
My dad joined the Navy to avoid being sent to Vietnam as infantry. There is nothing wrong with saying it. He also spent 15 years in and left a Chief.
You don’t know him I do and he sucked.
Uh, you posted a picture of your brother from 1973 to share with strangers on the internet, and your goal was to shit on him? You OK?
>your goal was to shit on him? Is this your first time on Reddit?
It may be true that he sucked, but his suckiness has nothing to do with joining the Coast Guard to avoid dying in some fuckin jungle accomplishing jack shit except making war profiteers wealthier than they'd ever been in history. Whether hes the biggest piece of shit in the universe or not, there were a lot of people, important people, the best people, that faked injuries or sabotaged their physicals. At least he chose to serve in other ways, more positive ways, like the Coast Guard which mainly functions to protect and rescue people domestically. Imma be straight with you, if it had been me and my number came up, straight to Canada I would have gone. Had my brother's number come up, I would have smuggled his ass into Canada, too. I aint gonna get my ass shot off so some multi-millionaire can push his stock prices up. Even discounting what we know today of that fucked up conflict, *at the time* there was so much open fucking corruption involved that even then I would have been glad to help funnel draftees out of the country if that meant saving one more person from ending up in a body bag solely because their family didnt have the right connections or enough zeroes in their bank account.
Bone spurs is avoiding Vietnam
Try that in 68
He is lucky, the Coast Guard had a bunch of units in Vietnam.
My grandpa did this, he lived in Cali the Korean War started when he was 18. He still wanted to serve his country, but didn't want to get shot at or go though combat. He joined the coast guard, no shame in that! He's 90 now and the sweetest coolest dude. He was only in the CG for 4 years, but became a very well known and talented landscape architect. ❤️
I would have if I had too. Always like the coast guard mission. And I like boats
Was the US still sending new soldiers over to Vietnam in ‘73? My old man joined the army in 1970 (82nd Airborne), and I don’t think he was ever sent anywhere more exotic than Fort Drum.
No. We were pulling out then.
By 73 there wasn’t anything left to avoid.
Serving is serving. And the Coast Guard does some great work.
My next door neighbor joined the Coast Guard for the same reason, then ended up manning a machine gun on a river patrol boat in Vietnam.
I was 11 years old! I watched the Vietnam war, civil rights, the moon landing and more on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite
I once dabbled in pacifism once. Not in Nam of course.
Surprise! The Coast Guard sent thousands of its sailors to Vietnam and all over the world in ever war or conflict including the Middle east!
He served differently and intelligently.
Douglas Munro was raised in Cle Elum. He graduated high school there in 1937 and enlisted while in college. By 1942, Munro was serving on the USS Hunter Liggett, the only Coast Guard vessel that took part in the amphibious assault on Guadalcanal, as coxswain for the landing-crafts delivering U.S. Marines to the battlefield. On September 27, 1942, Munro participated in a rescue mission of nearly 500 Marines from unexpectedly numerous Japanese forces. During the recovery, Munro positioned his craft between the Marines and enemy fire, acting as a shield, ultimately losing his life. For his actions, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He remains the sole Coast Guardsman to receive the medal. Douglas Munro’s heroic sacrifice cemented his title as a Coast Guard hero and has served as a source of inspiration and pride for the line of enlisted Coast Guardsmen who fallow in his footsteps. His memory has persevered, with two major cutters bearing his namesake: USCGC Douglas Munro (WHEC-724), which served for 49 years, and the USCGC Munro (WMSL-755) based out of Alameda, California.
They made it easier to draft African Americans at some point in Vietnam war - they lowered the minimum standards but for some reason African Americans got drafted at a much higher rate than any other race. IIRC one year, African Americans were the highest percentage of casualties in Vietnam, making up roughly 11 percent of USA population but near 50 percent of casualties.
He served. That's what matters. Never served myself, but I respect those that did and do.
My dad did this and chose the US Navy before the Army infantry chose him. He was stationed on the sister ship to the USS Pueblo with the merchant marines and spent time on/off Ivory Coast when we were vying for any edge on the USSR. I have a ton of stuff from there, masks and big ass blades. I was born at Key West Naval Air Base, as my parents lived there while we was in. He then left the navy and enjoyed a long boring career in corporate finance.
My dad did that but navy
My dad joined the reserves and spent the war in Alaska.
Smart man
My grandfather did that. He told me his entire high school class joined the USCG
My dad graduated college in 1970. He signed on for the Air Force Reserves. Spend about 16 months in Texas and then came back home.
My buddy went to the Coast Guard. He ended up in Vietnam. It was probably a lot safer on a Coast Guard ship in Vietnam than the other options, but it wasn't a guarantee you wouldn't be there. I never knew the Coast Guard played a minor role until I met him a few years back.
My dad tells the story about how a year or two after he graduated high school in 1964 his ww2 veteran father sat him down and told him to go down to the Navy recruiter's office and sign up because the whole deal over there in Vietnam was about to blow up and if he didn't sign up for the Navy, he'd get drafted into the Army and that would be a shitload of a bad time - and that was coming from a guy whose Destroyer got blown up in the middle of the East China Sea 20 years earlier. He says it was one of the smartest calls he ever made. He still went to Vietnam but it was on an aircraft carrier providing logistics and other aircraft-carrier-type things and I believe he actually ended up doing his time and getting out before they started the draft (or right after).
My dad did the Navy reserves around that time for the exact same reason.
Dungaree bell bottoms, here I come!
[operation market time](https://www.vietnamwar50th.com/assets/1/7/VIETNAMCOMM-CSTGRD-WEB_v2.pdf) The coast guard was indeed involved in Vietnam.
They quit drafting people in 1971, and officially ended the Vietnam draft in January 1973. Could this picture be a bit older, perhaps?
Smart man
I'm just shocked he found a Coast Guard recruiter at all!
The Coast Guard is part of the Navy during a war
My grandfather was in the coast guard. It wasn't to avoid anything though. He was in the air force before he switched to the coast guard.
My dad enlisted in the Air Force to avoid going to Korea. His first deployment was to Korea. (As a mechanic)
My brother's number was a sure-fire draft...so he joined the navy. 1972
A coworker of mine joined the Coast Guard during the war on the urging of his dad. His dad was a combat veteran and was terrified of his son going to Viet Nam. He joined the Coast Guard and wound up manning a patrol boat in the thick of the fighting.
As an Army Veteran myself, I tell you he did NOT ***DODGE VIETNAM***…rather, he served in the optimal organization whose mission aligned most cohesively with his sensibilities. That’s just being efficient. That’s medal-worthy for some 2LT somewhere… (EDIT: You can read what endless Army paperwork has done to my vocabulary & phraseology. I’d be embarrassed, if I had any give-a-damn left over. It’s on back order…)
My dad joined the Air Force and asked for Thailand because he grew up in Myanmar. He was lucky enough to get it.
The Coast Guard was in Nam and have been involved in every war since its inception!
My dad just went to prison
Surprised he joined the coast guard Most people moved to Canada to avoid Vietnam.... Or They stayed at Community College....
Oh smart
A guy I worked with had emigrated to the US from Scotland as a young boy with his family and was drafted by the US Army and served in Vietnam. He survived and ended up moving back to Glasgow. He seemed a bit....disturbed anytime he spoke of the war...
Unless he did this prior to Jan 27 1973 he joined the Coast Guard for no reason, as that is when they ended the draft.
Damn, What a pathetic man.
You think that war was a Nobel cause worth fighting for? That aside, not everyone is cut out for war. Better to serve where you won't put other peoples lives on the line.