BROWSE STORIES

I was finishing up my final semester at NCSU... had been in Air Force ROTC in anticipation of going into the service. The lottery changed everything at the time, and perhaps for my life. I had held campus interviews and was offered a position at RCA Computer Graphics...

This is the only lottery that I ever won, and probably the only one that I ever will.  I was a student in college & was reclassified because I stayed out of school for one semester and got married.  That made me eligible for the lottery.  Every time...

I was an English Ed student when the lottery occurred...my birthdate, Nov. 22, was the SECOND ping pong ball to pop up...I remember thinking "Oh hell."I had a brother-in-law-to-be who was an English major at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory and he was one...

I graduated from NC State University in 1970.  Some time during my undergraduate years (1966 - 1970) I had receieved my II-S classification which allowed me a student deferment.  Shortly after graduating in May of 1970 I received my I-A classification along...

I had about a year left in college before graduation when the lottery took place.  My degree was to be in secondary education and it was my hope that I would be teaching in a high school somewhere in NC.  I remember watching the lottery on television and...

I was in the infamous 1969 lottery during my first senior year at NC State.  My birth month was January and I ended up with a very high lottery number. But in the spring of 1967 I had signed the Army ROTC contract, so my draft lottery number didn't matter. I...

I was a senior at NC State University and very ready to get out of there.  The Vietnam War made for very tense times and soldiers were getting killed.  Every night on the news there was film footage of battles and the number of dead for the...

Will never forget that night. I was at a small college in Iowa. Everyone, at least the 19 year olds, had ears glued to the radio, eyes to the tv. After the drawing, after the cheers, after the smashed tvs and radios, the bars were full; either you were...

How did the draft lottery affect the choices I made in my life? Wow!Well, rather than graduate in Nuclear Engineering as planned in May, 1970, get married on June 6 and move to Charleston, SC, to live, raise a family and work at the Charleston Naval Shipyard, I...

The first lottery was held during my senior year in college.  My number was called in April, although I knew much earlier that it would be called before I graduated.  As with all seniors, I was in the process of interviewing for jobs.  The year before...

Basically, I was lucky not to be drafted during this time. If I had been born a day earlier (No. 184) or later (No. 71) I would have been drafted. Upon entering UCLA in 1967, I went to the Selective Service Board and received a student deferment. For the first two...

At the time I was a student at Chico State University (in northern Calif). I guess I was fairly naive because I didn't pay much attention to the war & wasn't much concerned about the upcoming draft. Anyway, on the way to school the next day, I dropped by a...

I was I-A in the draft.  I was born on Sept. 16th, so my number was 207.  In any case I reported to the draft board in Charlotte, went through the physical and passed with flying colors.  Because of my draft status, I could not get a job with a bank,...

I always had mixed emotions about the war. I had been in ROTC at NC State but was yelled at because I bounced when I marched. I was asked to take a semester off by State because of my grades and was working construction when I got my draft number which was well over...

Thinking back 40 years ago.  I was finishing a Nursing degree at the University of Wisconsin, anticipating getting married, and contemplating working full time with the Student Christian group that I had become involved with as a sophmore.  I really...

I was in the first lottery.  I was lucky.  I recall clearly that day.  I was sitting in the cafeteria at my college dorm listening to the radio broadcast of the numbers being called out, one by one.  I have a December birthday.  I was struck...

My encounter with the draft was before I was to go N.C. State on a football scholarship in 1965. I had knee surgery in 1964 by Dr. Jack Huston in Columbus, Ga. which resulted in a a staple being placed in my knee. I was called to Atlanta for the army...

There was no draft lottery in 1965 when I graduated from Cal.  I had a II-S student deferment for law school, and was slugging it out in my first year at UCLA School of Law.In October, 1965 my draft board reclassified me I-A and sent me a notice to take a...

I was eager to become part of the military.  My family dates back in the United States to prior 1800.  Every male of my family has been in the military and fought in every war and conflict since the War of 1812.  All four of my children including...

At the end of my freshman year in college I lost my II-S deferment due to poor grades.  Never a hard working student, I was unprepared for the freedom of college life and lacked the self discipline to pursue education as a full time job.  My grades in the...

On that fateful December 1, 1969, I learned that my birthday was picked No. 3 but it didn’t occur to me to panic, because I was young and stupid and just couldn’t imagine being drafted.  I left UCLA in the fall of 1970 and went off to Stanford for...

I was in the process of completing my Junior year at UCLA and was returning for dinner at my fraternity house from my part-time job while the lottery was in process.  When one of my fraternity brothers asked me when I was born (September 14th), he informed me...

I graduated with a BA in theater arts from UCLA in March, 1970. My II-S student deferment was thus no longer valid and my lottery number was 152. Not long after I left school, the infamous "Greetings" letter arrived. Lucky for me, I was a lifelong...

Had a II-S student deferment in college from 1964 to 1968, took army physical Sept 1968 and they found a hernia I didn't know I had, making me temporarily "unacceptable" (the army offered to repair my hernia--I declined).  Lived with my hernia, being...

I was lucky.  I was in college with the usual deferment.  I got a "good" number.  So the draft did not affect me.  Oddly enough, almost all my close high school buddies and my four college roommates had high numbers.  In fact, I...

My lottery number of 174 was too low to feel safe about being drafted, but high enough to hope for the best, depending on any escalation in the war. My II-S deferment was good until 1972, when I would graduate. As luck would have it, that year the concept of...

I was in the Peace Corps in South America at the time I learned of the results of the 1969 lottery. I read about it in Time magazine at 30,000 feet over the Amazon Jungle on a flight from Rio to Caracas. When I learned I was number 310, I had the feeling I was 'born...

I remember the draft lottery vividly.   I was 21 and a senior at UCLA.  I had a history of activism dating to co-founding at least one BSU and starting my writing career at 18, having delivered many culturally-relevant essays and poetry for a variety of...

I registered with my local draft board on March 21, 1969.  I was a full-time student at UCLA and consequently was classified II-S.  My lottery number was 189.  Like many students my age I was opposed to the war, but I was far from radical and believed...

This is absolutely true. I graduated UCLA in June, 1969, and was about to start graduate school in September when I received my notice to appear for the pre-induction physical. I knew this was coming -- since I had lost my student deferment -- but panicked...

It was the Spring of 1967 and I was concentrating on graduating from high school.  The war was probably the third or fourth thing on my mind.  First of all, I wanted some time to play and celebrate graduating before heading off to college for more play and...

I was part of the first every lottery, December 1, 1969, if I recall correctly. I was a freshman at UCLA, and had just rushed for Sigma Chi fraternity, Delta Eta chapter. On that night (I seem to recall a Sunday evening), all the brothers in the house gathered as we...

I was I-A from having dropped out of college briefly before I transferred to UC Berkley (Bezerkly back then). On the day of the lottery,  5 or 6 friends gathered together to watch. It was like a sports contest with teams of 1. We alternately cheered winners...

Before the lottery, I went through a nervous time when I failed a Spanish class at UCLA and, due to insufficent progress (i.e., I did not become a sophomore in the required time), lost my student deferment.  The draft office at UCLA said I could get my deferment...

I was in my second year at UCLA, on a student deferment, of course, and I was a member of a fraternity.  We were all subject to the first lottery, and were all congregated around the radio as the numbers were being called.  A frat brother who was born...

Starting in late 1969, I became active in the anti-draft movement.  At the time I was a student at USC and transferred to UCLA in 1970.  I led a small group in the San Fernando Valley that decided the best way to fight the draft was to adhere to the draft...

I had 2 years of college as II-S classification, then dropped out to make more money, and got I-A in a week's time.  That was in 1968.  In 1969, it was still going through the mill on how to do the draft lottery, and I got inducted in Oct. 31, 1969, and...

A large crowd of dorm denizens gathered in the front lobby of UCLA's Hedrick Residence Hall, anxiously awaiting the announcement of their numbers piped in over the PA system.  With each birthday read someone celebrated or moaned.   I...

My parents were particularly nervous.  Both of their boys (my older brother Mark and I) were in the very first lottery draw.  They professed at the time they would move to Canada if necessary, but we also had college (San Diego State for Mark,...

With a lottery number well over 300, and being enrolled at college, I was fortunate not to be forced to resist or submit to the draft.  While I was active in our campus student political organization that worked against the war and for civil rights, I suffered no...

My lottery number was 23. I immediately decided I had to find a way out of the selection process.  With my grandfather, I started a letter writing campaign to then Senators Tunney and Cranston. Through my grandfather's efforts and my bad knees that I only made...

I was a sophomore undergraduate at UCLA with a II-2 deferment.  Student deferments were becoming more limited, so there was concern.  When the lottery was announced I started to make preliminary arrangements to go into a local Army Reserve unit as there...

     The reason the stories about the lottery only go until 1972 was because the draft law only ran until June of 1973.  My student deferment ran out in June of 1972, and of course Uncle Sam sent me his love note to report for my draft...

Once the government announced that they were discontinuing the student deferment, I obtained the application for conscientious objector status and also seriously contemplated moving to Canada.  I had protested the war, marched in San Francisco and Los Angeles,...

By the time of the lottery in 1969, I was exempt from the draft because I had already completed my active duty with the US armed forces. This doesn't mean I was unaware or indifferent to the lottery. I was pleased to see that rich kids would have to sweat a bit to...

I was an undergrad at UCLA in 1969.  I was opposed to the war and an anti-war protester.  As the lottery approached, my father asked me what I would do if I got a low number (meaning immediately drafted).  I said I would serve because although I was...

I was talking with one of my MD colleagues in 1988 about the Vietnam War and the draft.  He said: they weren't going to draft me because my lottery number was 292.  I then responded stating his birthday.  He thought I had memorized all 365 of the...

Making it into the last-to-be-called third of the 366 dates, albeit literally just barely, was a huge relief for me and my girlfriend (now my wife of 35 years), and it allowed me to stop worrying about contingency plans. During the Iraq war, my wife and I...

It's funny the numbers that you remember in life. Your social security number, your first phone number growing up. I even remember my brother's Air Force ID #.  And, I will always remember being 250 in the draft.I was a sophmore at Los Angeles City College with a...

I was a sophomore at UCLA in 1969 when the first draft lottery was held.  I lived with three other guys in an apartment just off campus in an area known as the student ghetto (remember, this is the Westwood Village part of LA, so take ghetto with a grain of...