lbo at inkworkswell.com wrote:
>
> My wasband's older
> brother, for instance, joined to avoid being drafted and, thus, to get a
> better post. It was rumored that, if you joined, you'd get 'cushier' billet.
>
> Carrol said the same rumor was popular during the Korean War, which is why
> he joined -- IIRC -- to get a better chance at a safer assignment.
Not a rumor. Fact. And not just a better post but a post that more or less guaranteed one would not spend the rest of one's (short) life in the military. I joined the Air Force. On January 6, 1951, it was announced over the radio tht the Air Force was closing enlistments at 9:00 that day. Before the weekend was over, 1000 men in Michigan alone had enlisted in the USAF (four years). At NSA all the army personnel there were volunteers -- a three-year enlistment (draft was two years). In the fall of '50 one person from my highschool was home all shot to hell 6 weeks from the day he was drafted. They were really short for men in Korea. Air Force & Navy were almost sure bets to keep out of combat. (At Lackland AFB we referred to each other as draft dodgers.) The army 3-year enlistment was not a sure bet, but a pretty good one because in 3 years the army could get some use out of someone in a task that required considerable training. I was in my third year when I made the discovery that the Czech Border Guard traffic (supposedly one-time pad key) was actually using isomorphic key, hence overlaps were possible. No one could get at home in cryptanalysis in much less than two full years, so draftees would have been useless in communications intelligence or similar fields.
Carrol