I received my draft notice 21 December 1965 (nice Christmas present).
My first induction date was cancelled because of a blizzard snow storm. I was finally inducted on 18 February, 1966.
I first was sent to Fort Jackson, SC for processing and then on to Fort Gordon, GA, for basic training.
After basic, I was sent to Aberdeen Proving Grounds to be an Aircraft Armament Repairman. This MOS was basically for use in the Vietnam war effort. I had worked as a civilian for the US Army Corps of Engineers as a Cartographer (map maker) and had a very high security clearance with a restricted travel requirement. When my personnel office found out where I was and what I was doing, I was immediately reassigned to Fort Belvoir, VA. There I was trained to make maps the Army way.
In August of 1966 I was assigned to the 29th Engineer Battalion, 34th Engineer Company which was located on the Ford Island Naval Base in the Center of Pearl Harbor Hawaii. There I was a senior map editor, Specialist E5 and made maps to support the Vietnam war effort.
I was released from active duty and returned to home to Maryland on February 14th, 1964. Because there was so many men drafted in that time frame, I only served 2 years active duty and no active or inactive reserves.
Although being stationed in Hawaii was really an ideal duty station, after a while there, I missed the changing of the seasons. And the longer you were there, the smaller the island became. After a while it was just "another crappy day in paradise".
