Go West, Young Man - Just Go East First
My family had left Hicksville for Queens in 1966, and I had dutifully notified Selective Service of that change. I had heard that there were Draft Boards in Queens, but somehow I was not transferred to any of them. Eventually, a letter appeared in my mailbox in Flushing, which instructed me to report quite early one morning to Great Neck.
On that day, I rode my Honda CB160 to the address given, secured it with a chain in the parking lot, and boarded a bus that was filling with fellow guests of Local Board No. 3. Some old friends from Hicksville happened to be among them. On my lap were things I did not wish to leave unattended in the parking lot, including my helmet, and a new set of wrenches. I carried them because when my bike failed to cooperate, I needed them to beat it into submission.
Unidentified Long Islanders ready to board one of
the blue-and-white buses used by Selective Service
Newsday, date to be added
The bus crossed the widths of Queens and Brooklyn, and deposited us near the shore at Fort Hamilton. Together with other busloads of young men, we shuffled into a rat's nest of a complex, where we each were assigned a locker for the day. We had to strip down to our under shorts, socks, and shoes. Except for any valuables (like socket wrenches) and things that didn't fit in the locker (like motorcycle helmets), we were to leave the room carrying nothing but our personalized clipboards of blank medical forms.
We were given no description of what lay ahead, other than being instructed to always follow the painted stripe. At the start, it was painted on the floor, but we were told that as we moved around the complex, it sometimes would instead be found on a wall, or on the ceiling.
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