A Memo on the Vietnam Draft, a Prelude for Vets

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Education, Elitism and Class, military and veterans, The Draft, U S Military, Veterans, Veterans' Tales, Vietnam, Wounded Veterans

Bryan Anderson, U.S. Army veteran and triple amputee, talks with members from the 18th Security Forces Squadron on Kadena Air Base, Japan, June 17, 2013. Anderson was a military policeman in the Army and was able to see how U.S. Air Force security forces members conduct their mission within the different sections of their squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Malia Jenkins/Released)

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

(This is a set-up piece, a prelude, as to why we need a corps of veterans out there teaching young kids about America. Like any military exercise, we have to 1) know the objective and 2) and know the size and power of the obstacles out there laying out there to keep us from reaching it.)

Recently we published a piece calling for national service, suggesting that every high school graduate be required to attend a boot camp of sorts, where, among other things, they would be taught to make their bed, learn to say “Yessir!” “No Ma’am” and “Thank you” in the appropriate manner, and to develop an appreciation of sweat equity, rubbing elbows, with people they would never have spoken to or sat with in the lunch room at high school.

Yeah, I’ll bet you thought every kid already knew that.

Well, they don’t, and how many of them are in this condition are many more than you know.

WHY they are in this condition, and HOW they came to be in this condition is what I will discuss here, for the military, military service to be more specific, played a major role in how American youths have been shaped over the past 50 years.

In short, the idea of a mandatory system was impractical even before I put it to paper. If such a law actually could get through Congress, fully 40% of America’s parents and/or their children would likely refuse to comply, thus setting off a resistance movement larger and more violent then any we’ve seen in the past.

The situation we’re in today all started with the Vietnam War draft, for the social explosion it caused was all based on a great lie.

The great lie of the Vietnam War draft

A little history of the draft in America, by the numbers.

In the Civil War, the draft pulled in only 40,000 inductees, of a total of 2.5 million who served in the Union armies. That’s 1.6%. Another 120,000 bought their way out of the draft by paying others to take their place, another 4.8%. (This ability to buy yourself or your son out of military service was available only to those who could afford it, namely the upper classes…So take note of this.) True, many from the upper classes did serve anyway, but as officers.

Bottom line, the Union Army was made up almost entirely of volunteers, 2.3 million of them, 94%. And over 400,000 of them never came home.

That’s why we call our group the 15:13 No Greater Love Foundation.

You see, although officially the Civil War was fought to keep the Union intact, most of those 2.3 million volunteers enlisted to end slavery, because, all their lives they had been preached to on Sunday morning about how great a sin and great stain slavery was on the United States. Young men then were about as unaware of the larger purposes of America as young people are today.

Their sacrifice is still the Gold Standard for justifying America’s wars, a high moral purpose at both ends of the military spectrum.

This incorporates one of the many “First Principles” we will use in our curricula for vets who will teach young people, for it distinguishes America from the rest of the world. It’s a real attention-getter, for once you start out a classroom lecture with that, you’ve told them something they don’t know, and as a vet, have the street cred to say it with authority. I know this works because I gave several American Government classes to welfare moms in a small college in Cincinnati.

I began every opening lecture with this small fact: Throughout history no nation has ever given up its sons in battle to go rescue other people, people they did not know, of another color even, and not even known to be Christian, except the United States.

After that, the sledding was all downhill. Teaching American History and Government to 21-22 year olds was easy once you made it clear to the students that they were part of something unique and exceptional[…]

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[cross-posted on Veterans’ Tales.org]

Exorcising the Salutin’ Demon

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U S Military, Veterans, Veterans' Tales

Veterans’ Tales by Allen Ness

Vassar wrote about a Salutin’ Demon a few days ago. They weren’t uncommon in my day either. Usually they are young Second Lieutenants who haven’t figured out their actual place in the chain of command. Do you know the difference between a PFC and a First Lieutenant? A PFC has been promoted twice. It kinda puts things in their rightful place. Theoretically a Lieutenant out ranks his Platoon Sergeant but in fact that Platoon Sergeant is, by Army regulation, responsible for the LT’s training. The Platoon Sergeant has ten or more years of experience compared to the LT’s two. Explain to me how I am responsible for his training and he’s actually in charge? Its not possible. If worse comes to worse and the LT refuses to see the light, you (his PSG) just agree, “Hell yes Sir, that’s perfect, you tell everyone how things work and we’ll just reap the rewards. You’re f*ckin’ brilliant.” It gets ugly fast and Lieutenants don’t know whether to shit or go blind. Some folks learn best when lessons are learned the hard way.

In my first unit, the Wolfhounds, in 1988, Vietnam Vets were in abundance. We had a Command Sergeant Major who wore a different combat patch on his sleeve every day of the week. I remember seeing him with a Screamin’ Eagle, a Big Red One, a Papa Company Ranger scroll and the southern star of the Americal Division (of Mai Lai fame) among others. Then came the day he inspected my company during the peacetime Army tradition of “Best By Test Inspections,” CSM Lopez was an angry Filipino about five-foot four who, according to local legend hated everything.

We were dressed in Class A’s and gay-ass shoes. I’m sure things would have gone better if I’d have been able to wear jump boots and a maroon beret like a real man but I was still “straight leg Infantry” at the time, therefore stuck with stupid shoes and an even stupider “cunt” cap . The CSM was conducting the inspection that day and when he crisply stepped in front of me the first thing I saw, nearly covered by the epaulet on his shoulder was a tiny powder blue ribbon with five white stars zig-zagging across i. I’m sure my eyes bugged out of my head and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the Medal of Honor ribbon at the top of his stack.[…]

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See also Vassar Bushmills:

US ends 70 years of Military Presence in S. Korean Capital

 

 

National Service: How to Save America’s Lost? Hire The Veterans.

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cic-vics, Education, Elitism and Class, Employment, gratitude, hire our heroes, military and veterans, millennials, Veterans, Veterans' Tales, wounded warriors

Veterans’ Tales by Vassar Bushmills

We began this conversation a couple of weeks ago, when we pointed out that 90% of Americans have invested none of their own skin in this game that is called “Keeping America Alive.” Even my generation, the last to know the military draft, which was never natural to the American scheme of warfare anyway, and which accounts for about half of the “skin in the game” citizenry today, are now in our 60s and 70s, and will soon pass away.

Most college-aged kids, unless there’s an uncle or aunt in there somewhere who’re veterans, have never even met a veteran.

So do the math.

First Principle: With every passing generation, that 90% percentage is likely to get larger, only not because our military manpower needs may diminish, but rather because most Americans for the past 50 years have never been raised, and certainly not educated, to think of America (the-Idea) as anything special, as a thing worth clinging to or passing onto their children.

It’s not that we’ve lost our sense of gratitude–well, a little—we feel more entitled today than 50 years ago—we’re just no longer taught to appreciate the wellspring of that gratitude. American kids are no longer taught to look at any everyday product, from a cell phone to a hamburger, and connect the dots that put that phone or burger in their hand, or the money in their pocket to buy it. Money equals phone. Ever kid knows that equation. Job equals money equals phone however requires an extra dot, and many can’t connect it. Way too many Americans never have had to, as I reported only last week, in describing the growth of the trust fund babies since the 60s.

Just understand that much of what they now don’t know is purposefully denied them.

Still, it is those simple things, connecting a treasure in their lives to a foundational source, is what has always bound Americans.

In that story, above, about the ’68 Chicago Democratic Party Convention riots, I noted that there were tens of thousands of students from affluent families who had never worked, nor would ever have to, unless they could land a cush job at a non-profit, of which, today, there are thousands more than there were in ’68.

So today the size of that army of ne’er-do-wells who have to do no work numbers in the millions, and there are entire university and college departments dedicated to keeping them away from any meaningful relationship with their native country and its origins.

Moreover, if you’ve ever walked where they had been recently, at an outdoor function, a march or camp-in, you’ll also learn that they don’t treat the earth too kindly, despite what they say about protecting it; 21-year olds in their own private pigpen[…]

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21 & STUPID.

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Elitism and Class, hippies, military, millennials, race and culture, Religion, snowflakes, Veterans

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

Every college kid remembers when he turned 21 because it was the day he could use his own drivers’ license to get into the Boom-Boom Room.

That was in the first semester of my sophomore year, 1966.

There were a lot of laws, even ancient ones, that were in place then that are no longer valid.

I’m sure you’ve heard the axiom, attributed to Churchill, “If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not Conservative by 40, you have no brain”.

Now Sir Winston was aiming that at English public school boys, their version of Ivy Leaguers, and not at working class people. But American working class people did have a similar version of the same theme. Class distinctions were not the same in America, for children of working class people did go to college.

Of course this was what always distinguished Americans from the rest of the world. Even our noblest thinkers, educators and business successes had a coal miner, welder or dirt farmer in their family tree, unlike the English.

When I went off to college my dad simply warned me I’d act stupid for awhile, “so be careful”. But he wasn’t afraid of me slipping into the Boom Boom Room on a fake ID. When he turned 21 he was on a troop ship headed for North Africa, my pregnant mom back in Cincinnati at her sister’s house to wait out the war. Unlike Churchill’s class, he was more fearful that I’d fall prey to “ideas” that swam deep around college campuses, and become a Democrat, or worse, a liberal. He knew I’d bump into that sort at college, but hoped that I would reject what they taught, so that after college, I’d find a nice girl, get a job, start a family, and vote for the Barry Goldwater of my choice.

That was how it had always been once maturity, duty, and responsibility settled it, the same thing Churchill was talking about.

In 1964 we all looked the same on campus. You couldn’t tell an engineer or pre-med student from an English or poly-sci major[…]

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Our Mission Statement at VeteransTales.com, a Fundraiser

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donations, fund-raising, sponsorship, Veterans, Veterans' Tales

The Drummer Boy by William Morris Hunt, Circa 1862

Veterans’ Tales by Vassar Bushmills

A word from the Garritrooper, just so you’ll know where we intend to go with VeteransTales.org. and the Veterans 15:13 Foundation

A Little Background

In the mid-80s, when I was in industry, a second-shift floor mechanic came up to me and said, “If you’ll put me on first shift and give me a little raise, I’ll work harder.”

No, really. He said that.

Yet here we are begging for a raise, without a proven product, or for that matter, any indication we can actually deliver the goods.

The wise donor has to first agree that what we want to accomplish at VeteranTales is worthwhile, but also uniquely so; that it is not something you can pick off the shelfnice at Walmart. We prove that here.

Then second the donor to assume that no one else out there with greater bona fides isn’t attempting the same thing. Arguably this can be proved anecdotally by simply stating this Veterans USA 15:13 effort is swimming in waters no one in the veterans’ world is exploring. What we offer is different, the opportunity to trade on”being American”, which almost no one pays attention to anymore, yet is so important to our future.

It would also be nice if someone more notable than us could vouch for us. What if someone like John Kerry had agreed to serve as our Honorary Chairman? He’s a veteran, you know, and I think he still holds the combined service record for most Purple Hearts received without ever drawing blood. Would that help?

Third, you have to believe that we have the skills to cause this project to take shape according to our Mission Statement, below.

We have resumes, found in our writings and stories, at UnifiedPatriots.com and VassarBushmills.com, on subjects far afield from veterans’ affairs, but very near and dear to the heartbeat of ordinary Americans[…]

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Editor’s Note: Allen Ness and Vassar Bushmills are working hard toward the full achievement of Veterans’ Tales, whose entire endeavor is centered around our veterans.  

Looking for sponsors,  Veterans’ Tales, a dedicated forum to and for our veterans,is holding a fundraiser.  As stated in Vassar’s missive below, “…Veterans’ Tales is not political, nor can it be, for protecting the essence of American culture has to be a bottom-up endeavor…Our 501c3 non-profit, Veterans USA 15:13 Foundation, will be fully operational by year’s end.”

[Disclosure: PUMABydesign001 is a Founding Sponsor of Veterans’ Tales.] Please visit Veterans’ Tales, where you can read the mission statement in its entirety. Join us and please pass the word.  Hope to see you there.

 

Veterans: Why Do Americans Enlist…..When they Don’t Have To?

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U S Military, Veterans, Veterans' Tales

Vintage Sunday (Marine Corps Builds Men) Source:  USMC-Flickr

Veterans’ Tales by Vassar Bushmills

This is a theme with us at VeteransTales.0rg.

When more veterans with skin in the game have checked in, this will be a running topic, and within two years, a working project on the ground. (Check our Mission statement for the longer game.)

At the heart of this inquiry is hearing from veterans about what it is in the hearts and minds that causes an American to go down and enlist when he or she don’t have to, and when more than 95% of Americans don’t.

This is no small thing.

For the most part, I’m limiting my generation, the Baby Boomers, in this conversation, for the circumstances today are not the same as they were during our youth. We can share history and a little wisdom, sort of like tribal elders, (Hoka hey) in discussing what lay ahead, but we’re starting to die off, and likely won’t be around when this project’s complete, if it is to succeed at all.

The point here is to get it off the ground.

Besides, we have done such a poor job of passing the American torch on. Looking back 30 years, while still in my 40s, and Ronald Reagan was president, I thought I was the super patriot, yet there were things right under my nose I could’ve done something about, and should’ve done something about, but didn’t. So, my batting average is only 50% with my own kids, a lot of dots I could’ve connected, but didn’t.

A short history of the Patriotic Baby Boomer:

In my town of 1000 virtually every man that wasn’t 4F had given up 3-4 years of his life to serve in World War II. Even Jim the Jehovah’s Witness volunteered to drive a truck, going down to a depot in Louisville for two years. The company let his family stay in their house all that time.

In the WWII generation not one in ten thousand thought of the military as a job, much less a career path. Whether they served out the war tending naval vessels in Norfolk, or a year in training to hit the beaches in the South Pacific or Mediterranean, there wasn’t a day they didn’t think about getting it over with and going home[…]

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Tidbit: Recruitment Poster: Vintage Sunday (Marine Corps Builds Men) Source:  USMC-Flickr If you enlisted when this first came out … Your Commandant: Gen Wallace M. Greene, Jr. Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps Herbert J. Sweet. Monthly Pay Base: E-1 (95.70) O-1 (321.00) Major Engagements: Vietnam War. The first Super Bowl happened in Los Angeles. The price of gas was $0.33 per gallon. The world’s first heart transplant operation happened in South Africa. The pocket calculator was invented.