I guess I was lucky. I turned 18 in 1972 and had to register for the draft. The war was slowing down and they started to have a lottery which went by the number of days in a year. Whatever birth date they pulled out of the hat was your number. I got a number of 360 which meant I went to a 1A classification to a 1H classification. I was told it was a holding classification and if the war heated up again I would be change back to a 1A classification. I was never contacted again. I still have my old draft card to this day. So no full time pioneering for me. LOL. Still Totally ADD
Chapter 26 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy 21 Replies latest jw friends
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mann377
One last note: If you left before your time the Society would send a letter to your draft board stating that you were no longer a full time minister! What a way to treat volunteers.
As far as married brothers, they never had an all night watchmen duty. Their excuse was because of the needs of their wife at night. I'm not kidding. Any exbethelites want to verify this. I found this out at the farm when I had weekend duties at farm 2. The warped thinking and reasoning of the Society still amazes me.
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Fisherman
One last note: If you left before your time the Society would send a letter to your draft board stating that you were no longer a full time minister! What a way to treat volunteers.
I don't know if they had a choice or were required by law. Other religious orders had the same provisions, for example, the Catholics had a Brother position which was easier than priest and during that time a lot of draft age Catholics joined that order for the purpose of not being drafted and they had to stick it out. If they left, the found themselves parachuting out of a plane to Nam. - But not being able to pioneer if you left or kicked out of Bethel was not required by law. -
LongHairGal
NEW BOY:
Thank you for your series. I have read much of them and it is good that somebody wrote a tell-all about what really goes on at bethel. It is not pleasant by any means and sounds twisted.
But, what I like is that you tell it from a human standpoint of what it is really like and how it feels to be the recipient of sick behavior. They expected you to be a masochist. It's totally sick telling people they either can't get married or not to have kids. The level of control is unbelievable ...Interesting that you mention it was a bunch of Germans from Pennsylvania running the show.. As you said: hard hearts. I met a few of them in the congregations in my early years and only liked one of them [sorry to say]. I would have loved to tell some of them off but they have passed away.
You mentioned that many brothers left at the one-year mark or didn't even make it till then. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise because if they became one of the "lifers" they'd be thrown out on their ass at age 50+ to fend for themselves in the world with no money and no education!
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Introvert 2
Good stuff Keith thanks and Yes LongHairGal, Keith's 'new boy' series finally woke me up and snapped me out of the mind control when he first posted them years ago. It was shocking at first now I find it comical but can't help to fantasise revenge or sabotage in some way. Keith do you have any sabotage or revenge stories to tell that went on over there ?
NB : If anyone wants to read through them all simply search Keith New Boy or click on Keith's ID and follow his posts from there.
Thanks for your service Keith, err I meant posts hehe !
PS : Who is down voting above ?? This stuff is gold and egg on the WT's face it's priceless !! Reality TV at it's best !
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sparky1
All this draft talk got me curious. So I got out my Bethel invitation letter to see what it had to say on the subject. "Your questionnaire indicates you have received a 4-D classification from your draft board. If there has been any change in this please advise me before reporting." N. H. Knorr. As an interesting side point, some type of issue arose with the draft board not too long into my Bethel career. I never found out about it until it was taken care of by the legal department. I got a packet in the Bethel mail with all the documents and a letter from W. K. Jackson stating that his department had handled the matter for me and not to give it any concern. Paternalism at it's finest!
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Fisherman
Thanks for your post Sparky about the 4D.
So that explains it. Some bros that pioneered and got the 4D and got into some issues with the draft board before going to Bethel , BB would not accept them until they solved the problem without help from bb. But you needed a 4D to get in. You couldn't go to BB and then get the 4D based on being at BB. You have a great memory NewBoy.
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Fisherman
There were lots of black females in the congregations. And a lot of cong were mostly black bros and sis and I felt they were the best congregations because they were generous and took care of the Bethelites with food with clothes with rides with money. But there were no interracial marriages at bethel. First marriage I remember in bb was mid 70s , white bro from bindery maintenance married a black sis.
Some of these young bros left bb to marry local females, some with 4 or 5 kids. One bro I knew was very involved with a sis with many kids. I told him that I felt that he was making the biggest mistake in his life.
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wozza
Thanks NEW BOY for these stories ,when I was first preached to in the early seventies there was the stories of NY Bethel told to me of some peaceful relaxed place with people in charge of our eternal welfare . At the time there was their voices telling me this stuff and then there was my internal voice saying this can't really be ,wish I'd listened to my voice of skeptisism.
Over the years as I moved up the ranks I saw a lot of stuff that did'nt fit the original idealistic picture that had been painted for me by people who had never been to NY bethel or even the Australian one. In time I started to see the pettiness ,the egos , the dishonesty and how HUMAN it all was .
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Listener
As a JW I considered Bethal life to be better than Pioneering but back then there was no choice for females.