To start, this was a trade, only the Department of Defense can decide if it was even. I traded 4 years of my life for electronics training, food, clothing, housing etc. Even though I was not immediately in peril (late 1972) of being drafted into some strange field I recognized that I needed to get a handle on this process.
Visiting the various recruiter's offices I quickly narrowed it down to the Navy and the Air Force. The Navy offered an officer's commission for ONLY 6 year's commitment. Not wanting 6 years and not being particularly keen with being on (or possibly under) the ocean I opted for the Air Force even though they couldn't offer me an immediate officer route.
The Air Force offered a variety of fields of training. I wanted one which provided the best electronics training. Even then, the way things were progressing in electronics was becoming very apparent. I took various tests which showed I was suitably prepared to enter into electronics training.
In May of 1973 I made the fateful trip to Spokane,Washington where I would take my oath of enlistment and join the ranks of the military. My younger brother was concerned about air flights. He wondered what would happen if my flight was delayed. I observed that, once I enlisted in the Air Force my fate was totally in their hands and if a flight they assigned me to was late it was their problem.
I swore my allegiance; made the flight and my way to basic training at Lackland Air Force Base outside of San Antonio, Texas. I first became aware of problems when we arrived and the humidity was intense. I thought I was in trouble. But trouble of a different kind soon raised its head.
At the induction center (at 1:00 in the morning, all the arrivals were seated on the floor in a room) the training instructors (TI) asked for a simple action. If you had your Social Security card then, when your name was called, stand, hold the card in front of your face and recite the numbers. If you didn't have the card then, when your name was called, simply stand and say "I do not have my Social Security card."
Okay, I figured, fairly simple task (I had my card, but even if I didn't they had exactly defined only one other way of responding). When my name was called (with 'C' initial I was fairly early in the order) I stood, raised the card in front of my face, and read off the numbers. But there were many, and I mean MANY, who stood saying "I don't have my card man but I know my numbers, they are ..." at which point the TIs would scream, shout and raise holy hell. The rest of us would groan as they obviously had a procedure to deal with those who didn't have their card with them and each idiot who stood with a "but I know my numbers" was just slowing things down. (Now, I didn't think that being a recent college graduate provided any more ability to respond correctly compared to what I perceived as mostly recent high school graduates. But they had said, 'do this' or 'do that' without any other option. It wasn't rocket science! Hence my beginning of a bit of despair.) The heat and humidity dragged on.
When things s l o w l y came to a finish we were loaded into buses and transported from the receiving station to our barracks. There we were given our initial briefings, filled out various forms then were finally allowed to go to sleep at 3:00 AM. The TIs said that, since we got into bed late we would be allowed to sleep in. But at 5:00 AM (2 hours later for the mathematically challenged) the bells went off and we were ordered to get up and 'were we going to sleep our lives away in bed?' I realized, this is it. They control my life from here on out for four years.
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