Hanging around the fraternity house drinking beer one night in the fall of 1969 when the numbers came out. Not thrilled with No. 89 but was sure it wouldn’t be an issue.
Fast forward to spring of 1971 and graduation was coming up and war was still going strong and numbers above mine had already been drafted. With the help of one of my professors I somehow got admitted to graduate school despite taking an incomplete in a course and not graduating. I maintained the II-S deferment in the fall and started graduate school and cleared up the incomplete so I could graduate. The draft law temporarily expired so nobody was being drafted but in December 1971 but they found me and reclassified me to I-A. I thought about enlisting over the Christmas break — the Army offered a direct comission with no OCS and a desk job stateside, but they wanted four years.
I knew I’d never finish graduate schoool–they would only let me finish the spring semester–so for some silly reason decided not to join. In March 1972, there was still no new draft law and it became known that if a new law was not enacted soon, those of us who were I-A during 1971 (prime exposure) and not drafted would "fall through the cracks" and never be drafted. Not sure if they ever enacted a new law but I do know that I was never drafted – but should have been. It never hurts to be lucky — extremely lucky!