Mr. Minnick wasn’t alone

| July 11, 2014

Yesterday we talked about poor Fred Minnick who was born 120 years ago and died 22 years ago and how he was notified by the Selective Service that he had failed to register for the draft. But, he won’t be alone in that line according to the Washington Post;

The Selective Service System, which keeps a roster of potential men who can be enlisted in the military, inadvertently sent out mailings to more than 14,000 Pennsylvania men born [between 1893 and 1897], reminding them to register.

These letters were sent due to a computer error, the agency said in a message posted online, and the Selective Service has apologized to the families who have received these letters.

The problem occurred following an automated data transfer between Pennsylvania and the Selective Service, which included the names of the 14,215 men born near the end of the 19th century. The letters started going out on June 30, sent to men who would be at least 117 years old.

Category: Dumbass Bullshit

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2/17 Air Cav

One man received notice that his grandfather, a WW I Veteran who died at 100 in 1995, failed to register. So, the grandson tried to reach Selective Service to tell someone what’s what but couldn’t reach a himan being. Said he, “You don’t want to mess around with the federal government.” I found that remark both telling and accurate. Americans are rightly fearful of our government and our so-called public servants. In actuality, we work for them and we are wise to fear how they can screw with us.

Rerun0369

I agree, our government has gotten out of control, primarily the non elected bureaucrats. I don’t understand when or how these people got so much power, we are slowly sliding towards a Orewellian future. It seems the only government organization that is standing by it’s principles is the military, and even then it feels like our leadership is selling us down the river.

Grimmy

Please keep in mind that a great portion of the reason we’re slipping into an Orewellian future is because anyone trying to stand up against such is automatically branded a kook, even by our own side.

We talk the talk and content ourselves with that, and that alone, while we, each and every one of us, sit and await the placement of a slave’s collar around our own necks.

OWB

Yeah, like because you just happen to know that no one here has ever done anything more than talk about stuff. Oh, sure. Yeah, you can divine that about people with your superior powers of observation, or some other mystical powers. How utterly silly.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

The Y2K bug finally caught up with us…..

Sparks

VOV…Y2K? Because 1K just wasn’t enough! 😀

Joe Williams

And they have been voting Demorat all this time too. Joe

Ex-PH2

Either they start sendingt those notices to register to women, or I’m complaining.

MrBill

I’m with you. WIth women serving in combat roles, in this era of equality-in-everything, there is no reason that women shouldn’t have to register for the draft. I’m not in favor of a draft, mind you, but I don’t see any reason that only men should be exposed to the possibility of being drafted.

Roh-Dog

Shhhhhhh! Stop making sense! The pro-women-in-combat crowd might hear you and come attack this site for being filled with misogynists. You can’t ask a protected class to potentially sacrifice for equality even if they make up the majority of the population.

Ex-PH2

Roh-Dog, if those lazy, self-serving bitches can’t raise their right hands and put in their time like I did, and other women before me did going WAY back, I’d be the first one to go after THEM and drag them kicking and screaming to the draft office by their greasy, skanky hair.

I just want to be clear on that.

Sparks

Man I wish I’d get a draft notice! I think I’d try to hold them to it. Make em take me. I could blow the bell curve for the ASVAB and probably do more physically than some of the overweight enlistees. That would be fun.

Ex-PH2

I’m waiting for mine to show up, too, because you know that 1946 and 1996 look exactly alike. Don’t they?

BOILING MAD CPO

SPARKS: Can’t tell if your remark on Y2K was factious (knowing you, it probably was)so I am going to educated some of our younger readers. Y2K (Year 2000) in 1999 was a major concern. Look it up. I took FORTRAN in the mid 70’s which was a hugh program computer language writing system. It was writted using flow charts, and that one had to key punch cards (in duplicate) to get the computers to read it. COBAL, which was better replaced it soon after. Just my luck, but I was closing in on my 20.

However, the purpose of this story is: I was actually contacted by 3 companies that were worried their computer systems would crash on 1/1/2000 (which they did not). I had never actually written any FORTRAN programs, completely forgotten how to, and while in school, barely made it thru the class. In fact the only program I wrote had a so-called loop written into it that it used up a whole 15 minutes of processing time which cost the University some bucks. But somehow, they got my name and needed whatever talent I may have remembered. Long story (too late) but I am surprised that VOV even remembered. BZ

Ex-PH2

COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented languages) was written by a Navy admiral.

Do you know how many COBOLers came out of retirement to update/rewrite the date codes in computer systems when the Y2K panic struck?

People actually did believe that the world would shut down and nothing would work any more, and turned into preppers, to go live in the desert.

Hondo

Actually, Ex-PH2, that was FLOW-MATIC – not COBOL.

FLOW-MATIC was developed by Grace Hopper (then either LCDR or CDR, USNR) in the 1950s while she was working as a civilian at Remington-Rand. COBOL was actually a committee product (CODASYL, 1959). It drew quite heavily from FLOW-MATIC and less so from an IBM product, COMTRAN.

While COBOL owes much to FLOW-MATIC, just how much is debatable. Hopper in later years claimed COBOL to be “90%” her work, but that may be more than actual.

Calling COBOL “written by Hopper” is IMO an exaggeration. It is not an exaggeration to regard her as its primary author among the group writing it, though.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

I’m a really old fart CPO….and I work in a field where computers are a requirement to produce product and move data.

I am also a nerd hobbyist with a nice home network that has a dozen hard-wired devices and another couple of dozen wireless devices all running on a business class connection to the world….so I remember this quite well…we had to update a few controllers on some laser scanning equipment as a preventive measure in 1999…

It wasn’t Fortran, but it was entertaining.

Ex-PH2

Entertaining is writing code for ’99 bottles of beer on the wall’ and then trying to debug it so that it restarts itself endlessly, tying up the entire mainframe for hours.

Zero Ponsdorf

Did that myself!

Twist

Being that I am not very smart when it comes to computers I don’t know all the ins and outs of Y2k. I do know that I was the staff duty nco on 31 DEC 1999. I had a couple of Soldiers on suicide watch, 2 AWOL’s that turned themselves into me as I was making my security checks, and made more trips to the MP station than I care to count

Charles

Reminds me of this story.
http://www.snopes.com/military/icecream.asp

Where selective service sent letters to those on birthday lists to make sure they saw everyone who should register for the draft

Hack Stone

I remember reading that in Stars &Stripes. I signed my dog up for a birthday club (might have been Sizzlers). A few months later, he received a package in the mail from a company saying that he could earn big bucks selling greeting cards to his parents friends. Whenever my buds came over for beer and BBQ, I made them sit through his sales presentation. True story.

Ex-PH2

Ooooh! Now I know how to yank the gubbmint around and have fun doing it.

Green Thumb

I wonder if Commander Phil Monkress at All-Points Logistics has this particular contract?

It would not surprise me.