Quote:
Originally Posted by 9876543210
Well, knowing nothing about your family my guess is that they probably didn't have the connections. Everybody knew back then that if you were a connected family and your kid was drafted that you sent them to the Air National Guard. That was no secret.
I was lucky and had a 300+ draft number. So I had few worries. But sub 100 and you either volunteered, were drafted, left the country or were well connected. I'd really like to know GWB's draft number. That would tell alot.
Stupid? No. Just didn't have a lot of options. Viet Nam wasn't WW II. There was very little honor there.
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Actually, the lack of connections was a bit of a joke. My family has all been volunteers. None of them have ever been drafted.
As to other matters:
Today, August 12th, is the anniversary of the official end of the Spanish American War. While the treaty wasn't signed for a couple of months, this was the end of the hostilities (sort of). Here is a link to the wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish...93American_War
This is a war I tend to think of as a "forgotten" war. People know the name and have probably heard about Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders but usually don't know much else.
There were a lot of big changes because of this war. It brought about the end of the Spanish Empire and saw the entry of the USA as a "world" power (Kipling even wrote us a poem). It also saw the end of the old model US Army and the start of the modern Regular US Army. Most people don't know this but there were officers that served in the Spanish American war that saw service in the American Civil War!
We are talking Generals down to Captains and some Lieutenants.
The war also brought us Puerto Rico, Guam, and (eventually) the Philippines. Of course, it also brought us into other wars like the Philippine-American war and the Moro Rebellion which are two other "forgotten" wars