In the fall semester of 1969, I started graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I had just graduated, having had the good fortune of a student deferment; but I probably would have been drafted by the end of the summer, were it not for two changes of venue for my SS physical.
(My draft board was in Massachusetts and I had a summer job in California before moving to Wisconsin. The change from Boston to LA was gratis, but my mother had to write her congressman to get a second change to Milwaukee.) By the time the draft lottery went from rumor to reality, I had been in contact with AFROTC, hoping to obtain a noncombat role. Although it scared the bejeezus out of me, I had made peace with the prospect of flying rescue missions; and had taken both the AF physical and aptitude tests before being told that I would be needed for bombing missions only.
So, with no viable prospects other than jail or exile for refusing to kill people, and my Milwaukee draft physical scheduled for early December,
I watched, on our little B&W television, Mr. Hershey pulling dates out of a drum. Just like a game show! And, by the miracle of randomness, I won.
My birthday, June 20, came up No. 360. Just like that, it was all over. The bombing of Cambodia, Watergate, the shootings at Kent State, were yet in the future.
