How old are you?

[Crumpets]

28. And yes, I was in Vietnam (in 2011).

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

23, turn 24 in May.

[HillGoose]

69

[Sir Mohamed]

33 years, 5 months, 2 weeks and 5 days

[NOVA Green]

45-49 so basically right around the time we were starting to turn the tide back against the "Reagan Youth" who effectively tended to vote more Republican than Seniors in the 1984 Presidential Election.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_Youth

[muon2]

Not the oldest, but older than most.

(and yes, I was online during the Nixon administration)

[NOVA Green]

No, I had a college deferment. In my senior year, they had a lottery, with pulling number 1, meant you would be first to be drafted, and 365 the last. I pulled number 361. But then Nixon cancelled the draft, and it all became moot. I assumed I would test into the intelligence unit if drafted anyway, plus without glasses my vision was terrible. This was before Lasik of course. So being shipped into the rice paddies did not seem to be in the cards for me in any event.

Yeah--- the whole Vietnam draft lottery scene was weird.

My dad is 7-10 years older than you and after he got his College Degree (First in his side of the family ever), he ended up getting a job with the Phone Company in New Jersey.

So basically a working-class union job where he started as a "pole climber", was on the company baseball team with massive after-work bar nights, etc...

His lottery number got called to report to his local draft board (Don't remember his lottery number offhand but will ask next time we talk).

He ended up getting a medical exemption for multiple reasons, but many of his buddies did end up getting shipped off to 'Nam, a couple of whom never came back alive.

So the whole college deferment thing really depended upon WHEN people went to college and regardless of post-Vietnam media revisionism wasn't generally a tool that most people used to "get out of serving", possibly with the exception of some wealthier and more politically connected individuals.

Cue George W. Bush and his "deferment" in the Alabama Air National Guard discussion from '00 and '04 vs Gore and Kerry's respective and different backgrounds.   

[GeorgiaModerate]

No, I had a college deferment. In my senior year, they had a lottery, with pulling number 1, meant you would be first to be drafted, and 365 the last. I pulled number 361. But then Nixon cancelled the draft, and it all became moot. I assumed I would test into the intelligence unit if drafted anyway, plus without glasses my vision was terrible. This was before Lasik of course. So being shipped into the rice paddies did not seem to be in the cards for me in any event.

Yeah--- the whole Vietnam draft lottery scene was weird.

My dad is 7-10 years older than you and after he got his College Degree (First in his side of the family ever), he ended up getting a job with the Phone Company in New Jersey.

So basically a working-class union job where he started as a "pole climber", was on the company baseball team with massive after-work bar nights, etc...

His lottery number got called to report to his local draft board (Don't remember his lottery number offhand but will ask next time we talk).

He ended up getting a medical exemption for multiple reasons, but many of his buddies did end up getting shipped off to 'Nam, a couple of whom never came back alive.

So the whole college deferment thing really depended upon WHEN people went to college and regardless of post-Vietnam media revisionism wasn't generally a tool that most people used to "get out of serving", possibly with the exception of some wealthier and more politically connected individuals.

Cue George W. Bush and his "deferment" in the Alabama Air National Guard discussion from '00 and '04 vs Gore and Kerry's respective and different backgrounds.   

I was fortunately a bit too young to have been drafted for Vietnam, but I knew a number of people who went over.  I believe they all came back, but all were affected (physically and/or psychologically) to various degrees.

If anyone wants to learn more about the draft lotteries, https://www.sss.gov/history-and-records/vietnam-lotteries/ has a good explanation.

[TML]

I was born about a week before George H. W. Bush was elected President.

[muon2]

No, I had a college deferment. In my senior year, they had a lottery, with pulling number 1, meant you would be first to be drafted, and 365 the last. I pulled number 361. But then Nixon cancelled the draft, and it all became moot. I assumed I would test into the intelligence unit if drafted anyway, plus without glasses my vision was terrible. This was before Lasik of course. So being shipped into the rice paddies did not seem to be in the cards for me in any event.

Yeah--- the whole Vietnam draft lottery scene was weird.

My dad is 7-10 years older than you and after he got his College Degree (First in his side of the family ever), he ended up getting a job with the Phone Company in New Jersey.

So basically a working-class union job where he started as a "pole climber", was on the company baseball team with massive after-work bar nights, etc...

His lottery number got called to report to his local draft board (Don't remember his lottery number offhand but will ask next time we talk).

He ended up getting a medical exemption for multiple reasons, but many of his buddies did end up getting shipped off to 'Nam, a couple of whom never came back alive.

So the whole college deferment thing really depended upon WHEN people went to college and regardless of post-Vietnam media revisionism wasn't generally a tool that most people used to "get out of serving", possibly with the exception of some wealthier and more politically connected individuals.

Cue George W. Bush and his "deferment" in the Alabama Air National Guard discussion from '00 and '04 vs Gore and Kerry's respective and different backgrounds.   

I was fortunately a bit too young to have been drafted for Vietnam, but I knew a number of people who went over.  I believe they all came back, but all were affected (physically and/or psychologically) to various degrees.

If anyone wants to learn more about the draft lotteries, https://www.sss.gov/history-and-records/vietnam-lotteries/ has a good explanation.

I don't know if you fall into the same range I do. Registration for the draft ended before I turned 18, but selective service registration didn't restart until after I turned 21. I fall in the nearly 3 year window of birth dates that never was subject to registration.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

16

[GeorgiaModerate]

No, I had a college deferment. In my senior year, they had a lottery, with pulling number 1, meant you would be first to be drafted, and 365 the last. I pulled number 361. But then Nixon cancelled the draft, and it all became moot. I assumed I would test into the intelligence unit if drafted anyway, plus without glasses my vision was terrible. This was before Lasik of course. So being shipped into the rice paddies did not seem to be in the cards for me in any event.

Yeah--- the whole Vietnam draft lottery scene was weird.

My dad is 7-10 years older than you and after he got his College Degree (First in his side of the family ever), he ended up getting a job with the Phone Company in New Jersey.

So basically a working-class union job where he started as a "pole climber", was on the company baseball team with massive after-work bar nights, etc...

His lottery number got called to report to his local draft board (Don't remember his lottery number offhand but will ask next time we talk).

He ended up getting a medical exemption for multiple reasons, but many of his buddies did end up getting shipped off to 'Nam, a couple of whom never came back alive.

So the whole college deferment thing really depended upon WHEN people went to college and regardless of post-Vietnam media revisionism wasn't generally a tool that most people used to "get out of serving", possibly with the exception of some wealthier and more politically connected individuals.

Cue George W. Bush and his "deferment" in the Alabama Air National Guard discussion from '00 and '04 vs Gore and Kerry's respective and different backgrounds.   

I was fortunately a bit too young to have been drafted for Vietnam, but I knew a number of people who went over.  I believe they all came back, but all were affected (physically and/or psychologically) to various degrees.

If anyone wants to learn more about the draft lotteries, https://www.sss.gov/history-and-records/vietnam-lotteries/ has a good explanation.

I don't know if you fall into the same range I do. Registration for the draft ended before I turned 18, but selective service registration didn't restart until after I turned 21. I fall in the nearly 3 year window of birth dates that never was subject to registration.

I'm a bit older than you.  I did have to register (and had a lottery number, which I've forgotten) but with the war winding down, they had already stopped drafting by that time.

[Torie]

The Nixonian lottery game for the draft was not in effect for very long. It was but a window in time: for five years in fact after having looked it up, from 1969 to 1975. https://www.sss.gov/history-and-records/vietnam-lotteries/

So the telephone pole climbing Dad (God with my acrophobia tendencies, I would have hated that job) who was 7 years older than I, may not have played that game.

[Senator Incitatus]

Great thread for ignoring users under 18.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

Great thread for ignoring users under 18.

I do have to admit that most people (not all) around my age cohort are quite dumb.

[Calthrina950]

I'm 23. I've long noticed that the vast majority of this forum is "on the younger end"-that is, in their teens and 20s, with some in their 30s. Of course, there are outliers, as Torie, muon2, and GeorgiaModerate, who've all posted in this thread, are all in their late sixties and early seventies, and old enough to have remembered the Vietnam War. Fuzzy Bear, who is also in his mid sixties, is their contemporary and is also old enough to remember the war.

[muon2]

I'm 23. I've long noticed that the vast majority of this forum is "on the younger end"-that is, in their teens and 20s, with some in their 30s. Of course, there are outliers, as Torie, muon2, and GeorgiaModerate, who've all posted in this thread, are all in their late sixties and early seventies, and old enough to have remembered the Vietnam War. Fuzzy Bear, who is also in his mid sixties, is their contemporary and is also old enough to remember the war.

One observation stems from my approaching 18th anniversary on the Forum. It seems to me that the average age of active posters on the Forum has stayed relatively constant as new young members join and other posters fade out after a few years of activity. When I joined in my mid 40's my worldview wasn't so different than that of the core of posters here. However, youth tends to be at the vanguard of changes in society and I've noticed how my conception of society around me seems ever more distant from the core of Atlas. It forces me to adapt, which at times feels a bit jarring.

[TPIG]

22

[Fuzzy Bear]

65 and a proud Medicare Part A Card Carrier.

[NOVA Green]

The Nixonian lottery game for the draft was not in effect for very long. It was but a window in time: for five years in fact after having looked it up, from 1969 to 1975. https://www.sss.gov/history-and-records/vietnam-lotteries/

So the telephone pole climbing Dad (God with my acrophobia tendencies, I would have hated that job) who was 7 years older than I, may not have played that game.

My dad was born in late '45, graduated college in '66 or '67 and definitely played one of the worst form of lotteries ever invented in the US.

However, I never have been a big fan of heights as an adult, although not nearly anything like Jimmy Stewart's character in the Hitchcock movie Vertigo....

[Fetterman my beloved]

17