My story is perhaps a little different, as I was a USMC Reserve Recruiter for central NC 1965 thru 1967. I enlisted in the Marines in 1963, pre-Vietnam, and re-enlisted in 1965 when Johnson extended all of us when he landed the Marines at Da Nang. I put in for Japan, but the USMC, in its infinite wisdom, sent me to Raleigh.
When I first got to the Reserve Center, I was told to join up as many reserves as space would allow. It wasn’t very hard. There was no lottery at the time, but pressure was building over the draft per se. I talked to those I knew, as well as many others coming in to beat the draft. Quickly had my quota filled with a number of college type folks, who for one reason or other were losing their deferment, and we knew the lottery was coming.
I became the voice of USMC Reserves, and had my greatest sucess with college campuses. Going to night school at UNC, I did a sociology paper that showed the Reserve unit probably had the greatest educational level of any unit in the military. I took all comers until my quota was filled, but even though I advertised on radio, it was primarily the college types that came in. Coaches liked to red shirt their players for the six month reserve, as well.
The USMC was good to me, gave me a year early-out, and let me attend Duke on active duty for my last six months; had to wear the uniform one day/week on active duty, and not terribly popular on campus in 1967/68. Oh well. I snatched a number of folks from the draft board, which wasn’t exactly pleased with me either. In 1967 my draft board sent me a letter of induction, so I showed up in uniform.