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This is a true story that happened to me in 1961'

I had to go down to register for the "Draft" . This was mandatory when a guy reached 18. Anyhow I go into the draft office show my birth certificate and was issued a draft card( I was never drafted because of my 3A classification)
At the same time that I was registering there was another guy in the office doing the same thing. We both happen to leave at the same time and struck up a conversation and introduced ourselves to one another. I was heading home by car and he was going to take the bus. Just before we said good bye he asks me a question. He says he was drafted and going away. I said to him good luck and he says I am going to this place called " VIETNAM " did you ever hear of it. I said no and never saw him again.

What was his fate I will never know. I often think about this guy and if he made it or not.
 
Not as poignant as your story, but here's one I remember.

When I was 19 years old I was riding a Greyhound bus, lonely and miserable, living away from home for the first time... no new friends yet, no girl friend, no family nearby.

The bus stopped in some town to take on passengers. This was in a nicer area than most Greyhound stations usually are. Anyway, the bus started to pull out of the station and just sat for about 3 minutes, and there was this beautiful girl standing on the sidewalk.

I noticed her but I was really just kind of daydreaming, looking at this girl from the bus. I didn't think she could see me up there but she noticed my longing gaze :biggrin: and she flashed this brilliant smile and waved at me. I waved back, and the bus pulled away and that was that.

A small moment, but it brightened my gloomy day and I can still see her standing there now, 29 years later.
 
I still see vividly a picture that my father used to tell me... He was drafted 3 times for vietnam.... and never went. The first two times that he was called in, he was "failed", based on his eyesight (which was around 20/400). The third and final time he was drafted and went in, was beyond scary. At that point the US army was desperate for troops, and decided that it didn't matter if he was partially blind.

In the end, they lined up the fellows that were called in that day, and asked them to count off from one to four. They then said " #1's, you're in the army, #2's, you're navy, and number 3's, you're air force....... #4's..... go home.". Luckily, my father was a number 4. I've heard that story many times, and it is alway a little different, almost as if my father was making it up. For a while I thought that he was faking it.... until I realized that if I was in that situation, there is no way that I would remember everything either.:bored:
 
When I was in high school I went on a 5 week survival training class in the mountains in Wyoming. During the class we were taught how to survive with both the supplies that we had in our packs and without.

In the middle of the class the teachers broke the 12 students in to 2 groups of 6. Rather than hiking for a day together, each group was tasked with hiking a different path and to meet up late the next day.

Over the first day, one of the girls started to feel poorly. We had to slow down to help her. At the end of the first day we had hiked only 6 miles of the 25 we needed to. In the morning she was running a high fever.

Another student in the group hiked with me to meet up with rest of the class. One of the teachers went back to help her. He caught up with us several days later.

He told us that the girl was suffering from toxic shock and had we taken another 6 hours to get help, she would of died. We were told that she was going to make a complete recovery. That was almost 30 years ago. From time to time I think about her and how here life turned out.
 
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