On Thu, 13 Dec 2001, Tim May wrote:
Item: There are huge numbers of reported cases (no, I don't have URLs, but I have heard testimonials directly, for example) of guys who lied about their ages to enlist. (Some later rose high in the ranks...). This is hard to do if a birth certificate is "required."
I didn't say a birth certificate was required. I said if you had one you were required to provide a copy. As usual twist the words...:( If you google you can actually find forms and such used since the Civil War online. They ask a variety of questions like mother, birthplace, age, etc.
Item: Many hobos, drifters, and the like enlisted. Not a lot of them were in contact with their birth towns, or even knew where there birth towns were.
Where's your evidence, or is this simply your opinion as well? It's easy to 'win' a discussion if you get to make up your 'facts'. How many of these hobbo's did you know personaly (considering you weren't even born then I'd guess nil).
Item: Assumed names were, and still are to some extent, common in America. I doubt many able-bodied men were turned down for military service just because they'd changed their name one or more times.
Whis is irrelevant since nobody but you has brought this up before.
Of course, in Choate Prime, the reality sometimes parallel to our own, but usually not, men routinely avoided the draft by the simple stratagem of not remembering where their mothers said they were born, thus making getting a birth certificate impossible. "Sorry, I have no idea where I was born. Momma says we moved around a lot. So I can't get a birth certificate. Be seein' ya!"
Again, nothing I said implied that at all. Typical CACL responce, attack the personality and to hell with the facts. -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------