In 1969 I was a sophomore at KU, and my older brother was a senior, my younger brother a freshman. We had all been opposed to the Vietnam War since at least 1964, and had many dinner table conversations about it, finally even convincing our World War II Navy veteran father that the war was imperialistic, unwinnable, and morally wrong. On the KU campus we had been in a guerilla theater company that protested the war, regularly performing between classes.
On lottery night, all of us came out well in terms of numbers. Still, we kept our commitment to protest the Vietnam war. I thought of the lottery as a military/Nixon administration trick to dilute protest against Vietnam. Their strategy was to take the pressure off at least half the potential draftees, hoping that they would not protest because they didn’t have the threat of being drafted to live with. If this was their hope, it was not fulfilled.
I still feel sorry for all those who had to serve. But I also believe that protesting was the best service I could give to my country at the time.