MARVEL, I’VE GOT BEEF. Been doing some research on WW2 army serial numbers. For reasons *coughtattoocough*. And then I was doing some research on WW2 dog tags, for other reasons *coughgraphiccough*. (PS, Bucky’s service number actually belonged to a Peter A Stoll of New…
Not sure if this is helpful or not:
1. It was not uncommon for someone that was drafted to then enlist (my uncle did it for Vietnam). Enlisting gets you much better assignments and sometimes a choice of duty station. You often get to pick your MOS (military job) or at least apply for one of your choice. It’s possible that Bucky did this for exactly those reasons. There was definitely a culture in the Vietnam era that led to guys enlisting for the longer hitch (3 years instead of 2 for a draft) if it was a far less shitty job.
2. Next of kin – (I’m a US Army vet from the 2000’s). I can tell you that to the best of my knowledge you can designate anyone as your next of kin that you like on the form. If you don’t, they look for living relatives next, and follow your state of residence laws after that. You are strongly urged to list *someone* on the next of kin forms, especially going into an active combat zone. That person gets notified if you are hurt or killed, gets your death benefits, etc.
Psssht with that “#unsolicited answers,” it was totally solicited. If my frustrated caps lock/flailing doesn’t scream “help me!” I just don’t know what does (aside from actually screaming “help me,” but I digress). I am always fishing for insight! The military is a confusing maze of rules and language to which I am not very accustomed, so thank you! This does help clear things up a bit for me.
So I’m happy to offer up insight/answers/pointers on US Army stuff. Military culture and language can be obscure from the outside and I can give you pointers, if you’d like them.
And to answer the earlier question – tetanus. When you go through basic you literally walk down a row of doctors/nurses who give you a whole series of shots. It’s likely that he got his series then. And then again right before they put him and everyone else on a boat. The military is very careful that way – everyone gets everything at the start of joining and before going into an active theater, especially if it is in another environment where you’ll need specialized innoculations (malaria, for example).
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