In my senior year at Duke my student deferment was rapidly coming to an end. I remember thinking that the draft had always gotten well beyond my number in the past and if I didn’t want to end up slogging around the jungle on foot I needed to enlist.
Because I wanted to go to law shool I checked in to the various JAG programs and learned that I could likely get into the Navy program. I called my father to let him know that I had decided to enlist. (My dad was one of those unlucky guys who had enlisted at the beginning of WWII and then got called back in to serve during the Korean War). My father’s reaction surprised me. His advice: "I served in enough wars for both of us – take your chances and let them draft you – don’t enlist." I decided to take my father’s advice, and as history has it in 1972 the war was winding down to the point that they didn’t get to my number, and I headed off to law school.