The lottery really didn’t affect me personally. By the time the first number was being drawn, I had been in Vietnam for a little over 3 months. I was with the 3rd Marines in I Corps, and had been running patrols and night ambushes all that time.
Here’s the thing, I’m a twin. My twin brother was married and going to college when the lottery started. He wrote me a letter telling me about our birthday being number one. I wrote him back and told him that I was going to put in for a second tour so even if he got drafted, he wouldn’t have to go to Vietnam. The next letter I got from him was from Parris Island, and he’d already been in boot camp for about a week or so.
Long story short, my brother went into the reserves, and I was told that I wasn’t psychologically capable of doing a second tour, and they sent me home after my year was up. I did my time and got out of the Marines. Glad I went, glad my brother didn’t have to.