My part of the story starts in Chicago although my heart was in Kentucky. The lottery occurred two days after I married the love of my life. I was in my fraternity house at Northwestern and my wife was in the dorm at Kentucky. We had not talked about the draft very much until that night, especially since I was expecting to attend medical school starting in 1971 and would probably be deferred until at least 1975 or 1976. I think my wife was more worried than I was but she was watching the lottery on TV with the other women in the dorm and I was watching it with the men of my fraternity. One by one we would all leave the room to call someone as soon as the number was announced. I called my wife first, then my best friend, who got No. 56, immediately afterwards.
My best friend signed on for OCS in the Navy the next week. I pretty much followed the expected course except that I chose dental school instead of medical school. I arrived in Kentucky to join my wife immediately after the Kent State incident in May, 1970.
In 1975, I was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force and served a tour as a dental officer. In hindsight, in my case the way everything occurred was not really affected by the draft or its outcome. At the time, it certainly seemed as though the future was a lot less certain depending on that number.