Reply #9: "army or navy"??

[TahitiNut]

Well, with the exception of Swift Boats and SEAL teams, service in the Navy rarely resulted in much exposure to hostile fire.

I was an Army draftee. I (and my 'peers') generally regarded Marines as a bit crazy ... with more than a little "There, but by the Grace of God ..." I doubt it was possible for any of us to serve in Viet Nam without respect for others who had their asses on the line.

That said, I generally regarded guys in the Air Farce as a bit spoiled. They had better billets and facilities, by and large, and (with some notable exceptions) faced less opposition. Likewise for the Navy. At the same time, we all made a choice - get drafted into the Army (sometimes the Marines) or 'volunteer' for another service and spend 3-4 years of your life in the military instead of just two. I guess it split evenly, but I know of no studies that would indicate how many guys enlisted in the Navy or Air Force in order to avodi being drafted into the Army.

The schism, if you could call it that, was between draftees and 'lifers' - between 'US' and 'RA' (the service number prefix that labeled us). But even that is usually overplayed. In my unit, we engaged in the (mostly good-natured) poking and prodding of one another, but we worked very well together and had one helluva lot more respect for one another than is commonly portrayed.