Getting Drafted
Well, I fell asleep earlier this morning, but I've gotten this Web page done. So far only one part of what we did is posted here. There's more to come so it might be worth your while to check in for an update or two in the future.
You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.
The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday February 11, 2026, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. We had a LSB meeting this past week. We found out who got elected as an officer of the LSB, and people were nominated for Directors of the Pacifica Foundation. The usual people were a bit disruptive during the meeting and we got a report from the interim General Manager. I also got to squeeze in a quick Treasurer's Report.
Some years ago the WBAI LSB voted to hold its regular meetings on the second Wednesday night of every month, subject to change by the LSB, so we have the following schedule:
These meetings are set to begin at 7:00 PM.
WBAI has a program schedule up on its Web site. The site has gotten many of the individual program pages together to provide links and such, so check it out.
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Here is WBAI's current Internet stream. We can no longer tell if the stream is working without testing every possible stream. Good luck.
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WBAI is archiving the programs! WBAI has permanently switched to yet another new archive Web page! This one is more baffling than the previous one. For some time I was unable to post archive blurbs, then I could, and then I couldn't again. Now I can again and there are a whole bunch of archive blurbs up there now.
This is a link to the latest version of the official WBAI archive. The archiving software appears to have been at least partially fixed. To get to the archive of this program you can use the usual method: you'll have to click on the drop-down menu, which says Display,
and find Back of the Book on that menu. We're pretty early in the list, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Once you find the program name click GO
and you'll see only this Back of the Book program. Management has fixed some problems that we'd been having with the archives.
For programs before March 23, 2019, we're all out of luck. The changes that took place once WBAI Management took control of the WBAI archives seems to have wiped out all access to anything before that date in March. You'll have to click on the same drop-down menu as above, which says Display,
and find Specify Date
, it's the second choice from the top. You are then given a little pop-up calendar and you can choose the date of the program there. Then click GO
and you'll see a list of programs that aired on that date. For those previous programs you can get the audio, but nothing else, since I can't post anything to those pages anymore. Good luck.
Since the former General Manager banned Sidney Smith from WBAI he's not alternating with us on the air. As of November 2020, Back of the Book airs weekly.
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As we were recording this program on Friday night it was 58 years ago that I'd been getting drafted.
I'd gotten out to a bus stop at five o'clock in the morning and caught two buses for a round-about trip to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. I got there early and then those of us who had shown up had to wait for quite some time. We got fed supper at some point, I'd skipped lunch, and I had a hard time eating that supper because it was pork chops which were mostly fat and bone. Some time I should talk about meat scandals in the army in those days.
We were in what looked a lot like an ordinary classroom with desk-chairs. We filled out form after form and then at about 11 o'clock at night they put us on buses and sent us to one of the local airports. I think it was LaGuardia. where we were put on a Constellation air liner and I had my first plane ride.
It was so painful. They allowed the cabin pressure to drop to a level that gave me a massive headache for the entire trip, which lasted for about 2½ to three hours. We were then put on more buses and went through some part of South Carolina at two or three in the morning and after a while we arrived at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. We immediately went through more processing. They took our fingerprints, which I figured meant that I couldn't have a life of crime from that point on, and they determined our blood types and we filled out more forms.
At one point they gave each of us a postcard so that we could write a message that could be sent to anyone we pleased. I sent mine to my parents. On it I only wrote ECCH
which was a Mad magazine word used to communicate disgust or revulsion. My parents did not understand that particular communication. We were told to write the word free
in the place on the postcard where a stamp would usually go. And the people who were processing us in delighted in telling us that the next time we would get to do that would be when we were writing home from Viet Nam.
So at the time when you're hearing this program over the air we were going to breakfast 58 years ago and doing things like getting uniforms, taking a lot of tests and filling out more forms. We'd gotten no sleep from the time when we had reported to Fort Hamilton on the morning of January 16, to about nine o'clock the night of January 17, because we were non-stop doing processing crap. And they had us assemble every couple of hours to make sure that no one had run away. I think that during the week in which we were processing-in at Fort Jackson a couple of guys did bug out. It was an all together unpleasant experience that presaged how the rest of my time in the army would be.
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There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to talk about on the air at WBAI, even though the gag rule was lifted in 2002. However, there is the Internet! There are mailing lists which you can subscribe to and Web based message boards devoted to WBAI and Pacifica issues. Many controversial WBAI/Pacifica issues are discussed on these lists.
One open list that no longer exists was the WBAI-specific Goodlight
Web based message board. It was sometimes referred to on Back of the Book as the bleepin' blue board,
owing to the blue background that was used on its Web pages. This one had many people posting anonymously and there was also an ancillary WBAI people
board that was just totally out of hand.
In June 2012, I ended up having to salvage the bleepin' blue board, and so I was the moderator on it for its last seven years, until it got too expensive.
Sometimes we used to have live interaction with people posting on the Goodlight Board
during the program.
Our very own Uncle Sidney Smith, whose program Saturday Morning With the Radio On used to alternate with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.
There used to be a number of mailing lists related to Pacifica and WBAI. Unfortunately, they were all located on Yahoo! Groups. When Yahoo! Groups was totally shut down in December 2020, all of those mailing lists ceased to exist. One year earlier their file sections and archives of E-mails, had been excised leaving only the ability to send E-mails back and forth among the members. Now it's all gone. Older Back of the Book program Web pages tell a little more about those lists.
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The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2026, R. Paul Martin.
