No. 353. That was my draft number. Drawing a very high number made the likelihood of being drafted remote. As the troop requirements for the Vietnam War declined and the transition to the all-volunteer force began, the military draft ended in 1973, with the last draftee entering the Army in June of that year.

I went to college after high school, largely because that’s what most of us graduating from our large public high school in suburban Cleveland were expected to do. Cleveland was not exactly a hotbed of military activity in those days. Most of our dads had served in World War II or Korea, some in both. But military service seemed distant, something others might do, not us. We knew a few guys from earlier classes at our high school who had been drafted, a few who served in Vietnam and, sadly, one we knew of, a football player a couple years ahead of me, was killed there. Still, it never really hit home.

College was OK, but as time went on, I felt something was missing, something inside me that felt somehow yet unfulfilled. Even today, I cannot fully explain why, in the summer of 1973, I walked into the Army recruiting office in my hometown. There I met a Sgt. 1st Class Harris, and my Army journey began.

‘Sign Here’

The thought of an Army career never entered my mind. I just needed some time to figure out what I wanted to do in life, and I wanted to do something different. Not long after that first meeting, Harris took me downtown to Cleveland’s Federal Building. Paperwork. Waiting. Medical exam. Waiting. More paperwork. More waiting. Then, “Sign here.” A brief swearing-in ceremony that is now lost in my memory, a bus ticket to the airport and a plane ticket to a place in South Carolina that I had never heard of.

It was dark and so, so hot and humid when the group I was with finally arrived at Fort Jackson. We were a mixed lot. Someone looking at us would probably not have coined the phrase “best and brightest.” For me, it was the first time among lots of guys who weren’t like me (men and the Women’s Army Corps trained separately in those days). A mix of races, ethnicities, backgrounds, education levels and differences of every other kind. Some told of being offered the choice of jail or the Army. Maybe true, maybe not. Each of us had our personal stories, our own reasons and circumstances that led to us being together at Fort Jackson. But now, we had one common bond. We were soldiers, among some of the first to enlist in the all-volunteer Army.

During Basic Combat Training, and later at infantry Advanced Individual Training at Fort Polk, now Fort Johnson, Louisiana, we were led by drill sergeants and other NCO instructors, almost all of whom were combat veterans of Vietnam. We learned that some of them had been drafted, but they had chosen to remain in the Army after their two-year draft requirement ended. I recall meeting an officer only once during my initial training; he, too, was a combat veteran, wearing what I had learned was the Combat Infantry Badge.

Early Responsibilities

My enlistment option was to be an infantry soldier with my unit of choice—the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty, North Carolina. Moving into our “new” barracks—one of the old, wooden World War II-style barracks in what was then called the “old” division area—we so-called cherries met our platoon mates. Some of the older guys, mostly specialist 4s, had been drafted but volunteered for jump school and assignment to the 82nd Airborne. Because of some NCO shortages, specialist 4 soldiers served as team leaders or in other NCO positions. As in my training, most of the sergeants, and all the senior NCOs, were combat vets, most wearing combat patches from the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Airborne Division or the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

In the “It’s a Small Army” category, my first sergeant was Albert Brunson, a longtime 82nd Airborne veteran. Many, many years later, I met 1st Sgt. Brunson’s son, Lt. Gen. Xavier Brunson, now commanding I Corps. Throughout the years of service that lay ahead, it became common to meet sons, daughters, brothers and sisters of other soldiers who followed a family tradition of service.

I rose to the exalted position of being our battalion command sergeant major’s driver. He was an “old school” senior NCO who could use some particularly colorful language when making on-the-spot corrections or reminding one of us that we should be doing something better or faster, but he was the first mentor I ever had. Command Sgt. Maj. Bobby Teague encouraged me to challenge myself. With his support, I competed for and was selected once as the division’s Outstanding Trooper of the Month and met our division commander, then-Maj. Gen. Frederick Kroesen, who is well known to longtime Association of the U.S. Army members and ARMY magazine readers as one of our Army’s great thought leaders. In the summer of 1974, I met Kroesen again as he presented me and three other Fort Bragg soldiers with ROTC scholarships in the first year of what we now know as the Green to Gold Program, designed to offer enlisted soldiers the opportunity to earn a commission as Army officers.

Sense of Purpose

When I first enlisted, the thought of serving as an officer never crossed my mind. I just wanted some time to figure out my life. What I found in the Army, perhaps quite unexpectedly, was purpose, bonds of trust that maybe only those who serve understand, and an organization that afforded possibilities.

After finishing ROTC and my undergraduate degree at John Carroll University in Cleveland, I returned to the infantry. My first assignment was to the 1st Battalion, 509th Airborne Battalion Combat Team, in Italy. Not long after arriving, I met our battalion adjutant, 1st Lt. David Petraeus. You may have heard of him. And, much to my great surprise, shortly after I joined the battalion, we got a new command sergeant major—my old boss, Bobby Teague. When we first saw one another again, Teague rendered what is likely the most awkward salute in Army history as he acknowledged his former driver. For me, it was the next step in his mentoring me, a relationship that continued until we were both long retired.

As a young officer in Italy, then Germany, all the young soldiers I served with were volunteers. By modern measures, those troops couldn’t compare with the education levels or test scores of today’s soldiers, but unlike the majority of their fellow citizens, they had stepped forward to serve. And while we didn’t know it at the time, these were the soldiers who would win the Cold War.

In 1982, I was a recruiter stationed in Lima, Ohio, in the early days of the original “Be All You Can Be” campaign and Gen. Maxwell Thurman’s significant efforts to raise enlistment standards. We spent a lot of time recruiting in high schools and junior colleges. It was a time of significant culture change for the all-volunteer force and for those charged with recruiting. While serving in the

U.S. Army Recruiting Command, I met a fellow recruiting area commander, Capt. Lloyd Austin, based in Indiana. Another soldier you may have heard of.

Better Every Year

Army service took me across the nation and on many cherished overseas assignments. As I became more senior, it seemed that the young officers, NCOs and soldiers got better every year. The professional development of the NCO corps was arguably the most significant change I witnessed during my nearly 38 years of service, a strategic shift only made possible by recruiting and retaining smart, fit, dedicated men and women—all volunteers.

America’s Army has overcome many challenges over the past decades and will continue to face challenges into the future. Priorities shift, funding increases and decreases, equipment, training and operational concepts are repeatedly modernized. But for me, underpinning all that, and the most crucial component of the Army’s readiness to fulfill any and all missions the nation expects of it, is the all-volunteer force.

The Army I joined in 1973, the first year of the all-volunteer force, was undeniably the best Army in the world. Now, 50 years later, America’s Army is still the best army on the planet, but it is so much better because of the men and women who, in peace and war, have voluntarily stepped forward when others turned aside, saying, “Send me. This I will defend.”

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Gen. Carter Ham, U.S. Army retired, was president and CEO of the Association of the U.S. Army from June 2016 to September 2021. He served nearly 38 years in the Army, beginning as an enlisted infantryman and concluding with his final assignment as commander of the U.S. Africa Command. Before that, he served as commander of U.S. Army Europe, director of operations on the Joint Staff and commanding general of the 1st Infantry Division. In retirement, he chaired the congressionally mandated National Commission on the Future of the Army. He was among the first group of 50 soldiers selected in 1974 for what is now called the Green to Gold Program and was a Distinguished Military Graduate of John Carroll University, Cleveland.