I was born with an abnormal left leg, and "knew" that if I were ever drafted, I’d get a physical deferment. So, I never took my II-S, and instead let myself be classified I-A. Early in 1969, Richard Nixon sent me "Greetings", and I waited to be called for my pre-induction physical. The night before I went, to the Milwaukee induction center, I stayed up all night smoking dope and listening to Alice’s Restaurant, over and over and over again. At the induction center, they lined us up, 100 guys in a row, and told us to drop our trousers. They took one look at me and said, "He’s a G27A6," or somesuch. Then, a doc wearing a rubber glove went down the row, feeling our balls for hernias, brushing by me quickly as I’d already flunked. Then, he stopped, came back, and said, "Where’s your left testicle?" To which I replied, "I don’t know; it was there this morning." Anyway, when my shining new draft card arrived, it proclaimed "I-Y", meaning a physical deferment except in time of national disaster. So, when later that year, my lottery came in at No. 240, I had no need of such a good number. I wanted to give it to my best friend, who had No. 9. He wound up enlisting in Army Intelligence and sitting out the war in Washington, D.C. By the way, with my bum leg, I’ve climbed El Capitan, the Eiger North Face, Denali, and am a triple-black-diamond skier….but I was not good enough for the U.S. Army!
