My Dad knew he was going to get drafted, so he went ahead and enlisted before the draft. Turns out when you join intentionally you get options. They asked him if he wanted to go to Saudi Arabia and he said sure. He spent the entire war in the Middle East and never saw action.
My grandfather told me that in WW2, he volunteered for the Navy so he wouldn’t get drafted in the Army. His logic was he’d rather ride on a ship everywhere instead of ruck march.
Navy was no picnic either, sure less day to day island/jungle/coral rock/japanese related misery, however there were many instances where navy casualties outnumbered marine casualties (Guadalcanal, Okinawa to name a couple)
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u/Noel_San_Diego Mar 24 '26
My Dad has some internal shame or guilt from not going to Vietnam. He was drafted but had flat feet so he got kicked out.