Dennis Ihle, CTMC USN Retired, 1965-1988 I had a couple of years of college when I ran out of money and had a grade point south of what I should have had in the fall of 1965. As soon as I didn't enroll for the fall semester I got a notice of my change in draft classification from 2S to 1A (pack your bags, you are headed for Vietnam). I went up to see about joining the National Guard and found that there was a 18 to 24 month waiting list to get in that. The draft board just happened to be in the same building so I went over to check my status and they said "good, we won't have to mail you this". THIS turned out to be my report for your Army physical notification. It was scheduled for a couple of months later so I asked the people what I could do to not have to be drafted into the Army and they said "join another branch of the service before that physical date". The recruiting offices for all the services was also located in the same building, but the only recruiter that was there happened to be the Navy recruiter. We talked and he said with my background he could auto advance me to E-3 immediately after boot camp, garauntee me an "A" school and since I had taken several drafting classes in college I could expect to become a Draftsman for my 4 years in the Navy. As I recall, about half way through boot camp we were given a book/info about the various ratings and told that the next day we would be filling out forms requesting what rating we wanted to go into. The guy also answered questions that evening about various ratings and when I asked about being a Draftsman, he said to forget about that rating as most of the drawings were done by civilians and the advancement opportunities in that rating were non-existent. I was crushed because I thought I was all set and now I had to figure out what I wanted to do and had to make the decision that night so I could fill out the paperwork the next day. I finally decided that there was a bunch of ratings in the aviation field that might be interesting plus most of their "A" schools were in Tenessee (much warmer than Great Lakes in December). The next day I went in to fill out the paperwork. As I recall there were 6 blanks and I immediately filled in 5 aviation ratings and gave it back to the guy behind the desk. He said "you must fill in all 6 blanks". I didn't have any clue what to put in for the 6th slot so I asked the guy and he looked down a list he had and said "put down CT, they really need them now". When I asked him what CT stood for and what they did, he said "communication technician, and nobody really knows what they do as it's all secret stuff". When he told me most of the schools were in the exotic sounding place called Pensacola, Florida, I immediately put CT in that number 6 slot on my paperwork. Sure enough, a few weeks later I got my orders to be a "CT" and I would be attending ET"A" school right across the road (Great Lakes) starting in January. Somehow my background check revealed nothing out of the ordinary and by July 1966 it was official I was cleared to be a CT and in September 1966 I arrived at my first duty station, NSGA assigned to 6922nd Security Squadron, Clark Air Force Base, Philippines. I retired August 1988 and would love to meet that guy who had me fill in slot 6 on that form in boot camp.