"You Volunteered For This Shit"

When I went to basic, the draftees, the volunteers, the army reservists, and the national guard guys, were all in it together.  They were usually referred to by the prefixes of their service numbers which were, respectively, US, RA, AR, and NG.  Surprisingly, the USs generally had better attitudes than the RAs, and the ARs and NGs had better attitudes than either of them.  A lot of that was attributed to the length of time they were going to spend on active duty.  The total commitment was six years, with the RAs spending three years on active duty and three years on standby reserve.  The USs were destined to spend two years on active duty, two years on ready reserve, and two years on standby reserve.  The ARs and NGs spent six months on active duty, and the rest of their enlistment on ready reserve.  Ready reservists had to spend one weekend a month and a week or two once a year training with their local units, hence their nicknames "weekend warriors".  They were basically civilians the rest of the time, but they could be called up on a moment's notice if they were needed.  Standby reservists were full time civilians, but their names were on a list and could be called up if they were ever needed.

I chose the RA option because it was essentially three years and out.  It was generally believed that standby reservists would never be called up unless World War III started.  I believe some of them were called up briefly during the Cuban Missile Crisis because it looked like World War III was indeed upon us, but it wasn't, and they were soon released.  Shortly after I enlisted, it was announced that the two year ready reserve requirement for USs was being waived, so they ended up only having to serve two years.  If I had known that was going to happen I could have volunteered for the draft instead of joining for three years, a fact that the USs frequently brought to the attention of the RAs.  Anytime one of us complained about something, some smart alecky US would taunt us with: "Hey, you volunteered for this shit."  I think the hardest part of being an RA was the knowledge that we had brought it on ourselves, while the USs took comfort in the belief that they were only paying their debt to society, kind of like paying taxes.

Although this was before the Vietnam escalation, we all lived with the prospect that we might be sent there at some point.  As it turned out, about half of us were sent to Korea and the other half to Berlin.  Both places were considered to be trouble spots in the world, but the situation in Berlin had cooled down considerably before I got there.  Korea is still a trouble spot to this day, but it's considered a hardship tour, so you only have to spend a year over there.  The tour in Berlin was three years, or whenever your enlistment expired, whichever came first, so I ended up spending 30 months over there, while those smart alecky USs only spent 18 months.  Ironically, many of the NGs, who joined to evade combat service, saw real combat in the riot torn streets of American cities, while I coasted along in a relatively peaceful environment.