The commons room of my dorm at Duke was as full as I’d ever seen. All the excitement was early as the low numbers were called. My number, 213, was relatively high, but not high enough for me to relax.
I’d heard from some friends that if you turned in your student deferment and became I-A, you were only eligible for the draft for that calender year. On December 30, 1970 I called the draft board and found out what number they were on and that there would be no further call-ups in 1970. On Dec. 31 I went to the draft board and surrendered my student deferment, thereby becoming eligible for the calender year 1970. The next day I was home free. It was a pretty pointless gesture, since the war was winding down, but it gave me a good feeling to be able to have had some small active role in my future.