Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 11, 1993 TAG: 9308110016
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ED SHAMY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Back then, in the early 1960s, Casteel and a group of his neighbors from Floyd County bought an expanse of land near Floyd and started the Great Oaks Country Club.
Now, it's an 18-hole golf course and a swimming pool and a waiting list. Whether or not ours is a greater country because of it can be debated.
But now Casteel has been called to service by a higher authority.
At 60, a Korean War veteran and retired rural mail carrier who still dabbles in his second job as a television repairman, Casteel is a new local board member for the Selective Service System.
He was appointed in "the name of the president," according to the system.
It figures. A guy with golfing connections at a mountain course contributes to the right campaign, and he ends up with a prestigious federal title and a fat paycheck for a do-nothing job.
Casteel remembers it quite differently.
"A friend of mine, a dentist down in Roanoke, heard there was a vacancy, and he recommended me," said Casteel. "I said I'd do it."
He was volunteered. His term is 20 years.
"The pay is absolutely terrible," said Casteel, who doesn't get paid at all, "and there's an awful lot of studying. I've got a book here that's thick as . . . ."
He never finished the sentence. He didn't have to. The federal government could develop, in a pinch, a 50-page manual of instructions for affixing a postage stamp to a postcard.
Casteel was sent to Richmond for a weekend's worth of courses.
The Selective Service System put him up in a hotel and gave him some gas money.
"I get stuff in the mail all the time from them now," said Casteel.
We all can sleep easier.
There hasn't been a man drafted into military service in the United States since Dec. 31, 1973. The Selective Service System, which oversaw the draft, was disassembled two years later, then revived after five years in mothballs.
Local draft boards haven't met, don't have anything to talk about and don't have any meetings scheduled.
But, as Jim Casteel says, "you never know."
That's why he endured the test cases during training in Richmond, hearing the actors asking for draft exemptions because of their religious beliefs and ingrown toenails, and issued rulings in each case.
That's why 18-year-old men have been required since 1980 to register for the draft, and why 305,381 Virginia men have complied.
That's why five patriotic souls stand ever-vigilant to rule on each deferment request in the New River Valley - Casteel joins Robert Dobson of Montgomery County, Linda Edwards and Glenna Weddle of Radford and Giles Lester of Giles County on the board.
The draft board has nothing to do right now. For the time being, Jim Casteel will golf a little bit at the course he helped found and fix some television sets.
If we ever need to crank up the draft again, he will be ready.
by CNB