I was a Canadian citizen living in the United States since the fifties. Back in the sixties, non-citizens still had to register with the U.S government as a landed immigrant. I don’t know why but landed immigrant males still had to register for the draft when turning 18 years old. It would have been easy to not register and just return to Canada after I graduated from high school because I was still only 17 and all my relatives lived all aross Canada, except for my immediate family. Since I planned to stay in the States and some of my friends I’d grown up with were getting drafted, I enlisted in the Army in April 1967 on the 120 day delayed program. I went into the Army on August 25th. I figured it was only a matter of time until I would have been drafted anyway and I wanted to get it over with. As luck would have it, I came down on the levy for Vietnam in June of 1968. I went to Vietnam in August 1968 and got back home in August of 1969. Talk about taking the road less traveled. Back in the late sixties, thousands of Americans were heading north to Canada to avoid the draft or avoid going to Vietnam. Here I am, a Canadian citizen, jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Seeing my friends going into the service, there was no way I was going to run and hide up in Canada. I love Canada and I love this country that I grew up in and I still feel I made the right choice. As it turns out my draft lottery number in 1969 was 175. The draft number went up to 195, so I probably would have been drafted anyway. With all the problems we face today, the United States is still the greatest country in the world and I’m glad to be living here. By the way, I became a US citizen after I spent my 3 years in the army. Life is good.
