I graduated in the spring of 1969. There was no lottery at that time. In the summer of that year I was instructed by my draft board to go to Kansas City for the physical. I can’t remember if we were bused over or took the train, but the induction center was near
Union Station. I didn’t want to go to Vietnam as I was very much against the war. If I passed the physical, I knew I’d have to make a decision to go to prison or Canada.
For three days before the physical I ate only one hard boiled egg a day and also went running. I got my weight down to around 117 (I’m 5′ 9"). I had had a bad back in high school and had a doctor’s letter about that. Also, my eyesight is very myopic, but the regulations as I read them weren’t clear if it was bad enough to reject me.
At the end of the exam with about 200 other young men, I and two others were called to the sergeant in front of everyone. When I stepped up to him he leaned over from his desk and asked me: "Son, are you on anything? Your urinalysis is all screwed up." "No, sir," I said. Another sergeant said: "We ought to send an ambulance for you." I replied "Yes, sir". In the end I got the desired rejection and IV-F status.
I was starving. I walked out of the induction center to look for a place to eat and found a Town Topic nearby and had two cheeseburgers and a chocolate malt. Still the best meal of my life, and I have never felt so free.
By the way, I’m an author and one of my books, "Then and Now: The Harmony of the Instantaneous All" is set in Lawrence, Kansas at KU during that turbulent spring of 1970. It’s a fictional account but with a lot of real events within it. I hope you might check it out: http://amzn.to/19Uitq4