I was caught up in it like everyone else at that time. The night they held the lottery, I was busy with other things, and did not know the results until the next day. When I saw that my number was 163, I knew it probably was not high enough to escape the call-up. I had recently graduated with a BS in Civil Engineering, and was working for a company that told me (at the time they first interviewed me in the fall in 1968) that they did a lot of work for the Department of Defense, and felt they could get my draft status reclassified from I-A to II-A (Occupational Deferment). The initial attempt to get it through Kansas (my home state) was denied; but since my company was headquartered on the Missouri side, it also had to go through the Missouri Board. Missouri overturned the denial, based on what the company was doing, its reputation, etc., and I was then reclassified II-A.I was one of several other young men in this particular company who was able to secure this kind of deferment, and we were each able to renew our II-A classification each year until 1972 when the draft law of the time expired, and the Vietnam conflict was drawing to a close.
