The lottery number changed my life – I knew I would be drafted upon graduation in June 1970. I had already accepted a job in New York, but knew I would have to borrow money for clothes and a car before getting drafted, and then would not be making enough money to repay the loan. Instead I enlisted for two years, giving up the job in New York. My degree kept me stateside, working in a hospital operating room at Fort Gordon, Georgia, patching up amputees returning from Vietnam. Upon discharge in 1972, I found a career job at home in St. Louis, allowing us to be near our families and developing a social network of many friends who are still the fabric of our lives today.
