Draft Card

When I got home, I had a stack of DD214s and managed to use up most of them. I needed to use one when I signed up for Unemployment Insurance, one for the Draft Board(Selective Service) and I put one on file at the county court house for future reference(glad I did as I have been back a couple of times to get copies). Don't remember where all I needed to bring a copy of my DD214, but used up most of them.

After I brought a copy of my DD214 to the Draft Board, I received in the mail a new draft card. This time it said 4A instead of 1A. 1A meant you were a prime candidate for the draft. As I liked to joke, 4A meant they would be drafting women and priests before me. (Actually that's not true as anyone that's been paying attention to what's happening with the troops these days with call-backs and holds requiring either that they report back to the military or they're forced to stay in past their discharge date.) If they had tried to call me back, I would have gone around the lake and taken up residence in Canuck Land.

A couple of years after I got out, they eliminated the draft. In order to get people to sign up without pressure from the draft, they raised the pay for the military. Before I got out I was making $283.50 a month before taxes as an E-4 with over three years in. When they got rid of the draft, starting pay in Basic Training was $400 a month. My first job out of High School I was making $100 a week before taxes and that was about 8 years earlier, so it still wasn't good money, but it was better than when I was in the military.

Home From The "War"

When I got home(after straddling that grey dog), I was planning on staying at the 'Ranch' in the "Little House". As it was February, it would be easier to heat the little two room cottage than the bigger house on the place. As it was I barely got the chill out of the place. A friend said I could stay with him and his new wife as he had a spare bedroom. It made sense at the time because I had to walk into my place as the road wasn't plowed for the last 800 feet or so. The snow was 3-4 feet deep, but with snowshoes it wasn't too bad and after awhile the path gets packed and frozen to the point where you don't need snowshoes to walk on it. Also the place didn't have running water, so I would have been roughing it (just like I did before I went into the military).

"The Little House" about 4-5 years after I got home from the war.

I stayed there for a couple of months. We did a lot of partying even tho my friend had a full-time job. My friend's wife had been a stripper up in Fairbanks, AK where they met. She had done a few gigs locally, too. She was a nice person when sober, but could get strange when drunk. One night after drinking, she slashed her face with a razor blade in several places while watching Johnny Cash on TV and I had to haul her downtown to the ER. The doctor on call that night refused to treat her because he figured (rightly) that she was lying about how she injured herself. The doctor that finally sewed her up was from the same small town as us and instead of haranguing her about how it happened, he just calmly sewed up her face while telling jokes.

There were a number of things that happened during the time I stayed with them and by the time I moved back to my place I was a little scared of her, having seen her in action while drunk. Turned out I needn't have been scared of her as she really liked and respected me because no matter how hard she tried, I wouldn't have sex with her. She was my friend's wife and there was no way I would do that. Of course, if she hadn't been married to my friend, it might have been different. She was an attractive woman I would have been ready to jump in the sack with her if it hadn't been for this one little thing, she was married to my friend!!

Anywho, after she set fire to the woodshed and burnt it down, I moved back to my place as things were getting too crazy around there. By then most of the snow had melted and it was easier for me to get in and out of my place. I think my friend and his wife came to some kind of understanding and they made plans to bring her back to Fairbanks. We did a car swap (one dead car for another dead car) and I helped fix up my old T-Bird for the trip to Alaska. We did an engine-transmission transplant and welded patches on the body to plug the rust holes to try and keep the dust out as most of the Al-Can highway is unpaved.

The attacks on my virtue continued, and I continued to resist. Looking back, it does my ego good to think about how often she tried and the things she did to entice me!!!

The Rest Of The Story: my friend brought her back to Fairbanks and left her in the same bar he found her in. He said he tried to leave her on the same bar stool, but there was someone sitting on it that wouldn't move, so she got left on the stool next to it.