My story has a series of ironic twists.
I was in ROTC while in college. The first irony of the lottery, as I remember it, was that it was being held after I had to commit to the final two years of ROTC training. It was a gamble, but I chose to go with the ROTC option. When I ended up with a really low lottery number, I felt pretty good that I had made that choice.
The second irony was that when I graduated, the army said they had commissioned "too many" second lieutenants and that some of us would be allowed to go to graduate school instead of directly into the Army.
I took that option and went to seminary.
The third irony was that by the time I got done with seminary, the war was over. The army sent me a nice letter asking if I wanted to leave the army without ever having served a single day.
I rejected that, joined the reserves and put in a full career, retiring as a Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Now that’s what I call ironic.