Army Bids Goodbye to Last Draftee

Chief Warrant Officer Clyde Green and his wife Veria, in front of their house on base. Green, one of the last men drafted into the Army, and a Vietnam veteran, is retiring after 40 years of service in a ceremony to be held at Fort McPherson Thursday. He’s the oldest soldier at Fort McPherson, where he lives in the oldest house on base.

Bob Andres bandres@ajc.com

http://www.military.com/news/article/army-bids-goodbye-to-last-draftee.html

September 30, 2010
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

He was a kid who didn't want to be a Soldier. There was a war in Vietnam and a peace movement in America.

But then he got the government's letter and soon found himself on a cold December morning in 1970 in front of a post office in Sumter, S.C., listening to a Soldier read names until he heard his: "Clyde Green!" With that, the 20-year-old kid climbed on the bus headed to a U.S. Army base.

"I didn't want to join the Army," Green said last week. "The Army came and got me."

When he retired as a chief warrant officer in a ceremony this morning at Fort McPherson, Ga. --- after 39 years, 9 months and 15 days of continuous active duty --- he became, by the best accounting, the last U.S. Army draftee who fought in Vietnam.

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