I was a student at Emory University when the lottery took place. It was my sophomore year in the fall of ’69. I was sitting in the TV room at the fraternity house (Delta Tau Delta) along with several of my brothers and remember watching the numbers being called. I don’t remember whether General Hershey was the person announcing the numbers or not but he was responsible for the draft. I remember sitting there anxiously hoping that my birthday would not be called when boom…September 26th was called as the 18th number drawn!!! I was sunk.
In those days nobody wanted to go to Vietnam and my first fear was that when I got my undergraduate degree, I would be inducted and sent to Vietnam. So, I could forget the idea of going to graduate school. I transferred from Emory to UK after my sophomore year and graduated in the spring of 1972. As it turned out, I did get my “greetings” letter the month following graduation and I ended up going in the Army and served for three years while almost every one of my close friends drew a high number in the draft and never had to serve. I’m proud that I did serve now.