The semester before the lottery, I had signed up to join Air Force ROTC. I was hoping to be a pilot and eventually get into the astronaut program. On the night of the lottery, I was studying in the library but got back to the dorm in time to catch the tail end of it. Someone yelled out "Bob, when’s yer birthday?" When I told him he gleefully shouted "Yer Number 4!" I thought, "So what? I’ll be in the Air Force anyway…"
At the end of that spring semester, I came down with a medical condition that required extensive surgery. I asked the surgeon if it would keep me out of AF ROTC. He said it indeed would, BUT it might NOT keep me out of the Army. Bummer! So at the end of my senior year, my student deferment ran out and I got on the bus to Charlotte for my induction physical. The medical corpsman took one look at my scars, turned pale and stamped my card "1-Y".