BROWSE STORIES

I was a sophomore at UNC Chapel Hill when the ‘69 draft lottery was held. Like many of my classmates, I’d made the transition from a clean-cut freshman from Winston-Salem to a long-haired war protester, complete with bellbottom jeans and a peace sign belt...

I entered the US Military Academy on 3 July 1967 and was separated from the Corps on 11 June 1968, after having been admitted to UCLA. I still have a hard time explaining why I left, and it remains one of two significant regrets in my life. It seemed like a good idea...

I'd hired a lawyer the previous summer to fix me up with a dubious but effective medical deferment.  He said it could come back to haunt me if I ever went into politics, then as now the least of my ambitions.  To this day I don't even know what my number...

I was attending UCLA and lived in a frat house in 1969.  I had made the decision to not apply for my school deferment after being denied a conscientious objector status.  I was subsequently classified I-A.  I sat around a radio with my frat brothers...

I was in my first year of law school, in Indiana at Notre Dame, when I received a lottery number for the draft. Since I was the sole male descendant in my family, I filed for and received an exemption from having to go fight in the horrible war.

I watched in horror as my birthday was matched to 87. I decided immediately to begin attending divinity school. The divinity schools then had a great gimmick. The program was 6 years long (no one to my knowledge ever graduated) and if you were unlucky enough to...

By the time of the first lottery I had already been "drafted."  I somehow persuaded local draft board 92 that I was a conscientious objector.  I was re-classified, after my successful appeal of the original denial, from I-A to I-O.  That...

There were only three TV stations in Madison at the time of the lottery. One (CBS) was a VHF station and the other two (ABC and NBC) were UHF stations. The only TV to which I had access was VHF only. At the time the stations took their commitment to broadcast what was...

I was in college at UCLA when they did the lottery. I graduated in June, 1971 & was immediately contacted about taking a physical at the Alameda Naval Air Station in Oakland. I had been accepted to a Ph.D. program at Cal. My wife & I were moving to Berkeley...

Life has its twists and turns and I am not sure what the grand plan is, but this is my story. I was a senior at UCLA and would have been drafted as my lottery number was 80.  But in the fall of 1970 I developed cancer.  I had two surgeries and three years of...

I was part of the 1970 draft lottery, for individuals born in 1951.  My lottery number was 12.  At the time I was a student at a local junior college.  My draft status changed from II-S to I-A.  I even went  down to the local draft board...

I had a low number so I looked into volunteering and ROTC, but I would have been a helicopter pilot and I didn't even know how to drive a car. I had grown up overseas, so I decided to go back abroad and get my master's degree. There was an military induction center in...

When I graduated from UCLA in June 1969, I knew I was likely to be drafted quickly by my draft board in Oregon City, OR.  In advance of graduation, I had applied to various Reserve and National Guard units in the LA area.  The day after graduation I was...

I remember being at my fraternity house on the UCLA campus as we brothers gathered for the numbers to be given out. Some of my closest friends got very low numbers ranging from 18 to 108. I turned out to be one of the last brothers called at #325, which corresponded...

I recall the lottery as if it were yesterday. I was with a number of my football teammates at UCLA. At that time, it had already been determined that anybody in the first 120 would be drafted. When number 68 came up for my birthday, my heart sank, because I already...

I was at UCLA, on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Since I was already headed to the military, my lottery number held no significance to me.  When it came up 50, I remember thinking, well, it's a good thing I'll get to go into the military on my terms and as an...

I turned 18 in November of 1971. I was a long-haired pot-smoking hippie  in my first semester of college. I was totally against the war. There was no college deferment at the time (nor should there have been in my opinion). I remember feeling existentially...

The only lottery I have ever won, was the one I lost in 1969.  I can remember receiving my lottery number 196 and really not knowing whether this was going to be good or bad.  Well, by September I didn't like the prospects.I went to the local draft...

I had already been drafted before the lottery, in 1968.  I was in grad school but deferments for grad school had been eliminated.  The lottery put a lot more sanity into people's lives by removing some of the uncertainty. (I gave up on going to the East...

I had been accepted to Navy OCS before the lottery. When my lottery number came up 314, I chose not to enlist. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made.

I was a third year undergraduate at UCLA when the first lottery was held. I received No. 91 which was considered a low number at the time, and with it, an almost certainty of being drafted once my 4 year student exemption expired in June of 1971. I lived on...

Like every other male our age at UW-Madison, my best friends and I sat up waiting to hear what our numbers would be.  It was a tumoultous time and before we would graduate we would see numerous demonstrations, TA strikes, riots, would get pepper-gassed,...

I was in my sophmore year at UCSB, listening to the first draw with my friends.  None of us supported the war; we couldn't understand why American boys our age needed to die to keep a country in SE Asia from falling to Communism.  The draft seemed unfair,...

I watched in the basement of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house at 535 Gayley--long since replaced by apartments.  I believe there were copious amounts of intoxicants consumed, legally in that darkened room, and illegally elsewhere in the house and...

The draft lottery was the only lottery I ever won, with a 95. As I was contemplating a career in federal law enforcement or intelligence following graduation from UCLA, I decided to enlist in the Army so I could choose a relevant career field that might provide...

On the eve of the first lottery, I sat in the fraternity house, terrified along with most of the brothers. I was a soph and a determined anti-war demonstator. As each number was called, each of us feared the worst. The media was speculating that the first third would...

I had joined the Navy ROTC at UCLA because I needed a source of income.  I had the opportunity to receive a full scholarship if I signed the paperwork which would commit me to serve four years after graduation.  I didn't expect this would put me in a...

I had previously completed my military service (USNR 1957 - 1963) and was thus not eligible for the Draft in 1970. But at our UCLA graduation ceremony in June of that year, our entire class refused to wear caps & gowns as an expression of solidarity with the...

My story has a series of ironic twists.I was in ROTC while in college. The first irony of the lottery, as I remember it, was that it was being held after I had to commit to the final two years of ROTC training. It was a gamble, but I chose to go with the ROTC option....

I was a student at UCLA when the lottery numbers were coming up. I was not affected for I had enlisted in 1966, US Army Airborne, Special Forces. I served in Viet Nam as a Green Beret. My saddest times were when I was discharged and basically spit on by several...

Before the lottery, I visited a UCLA attorney to get counseling on how to deal with the draft board. I had already been scheduled for a physical exam in downtown L.A.  I showed up with what seemed like hundreds of other guys. We were divided up into small groups...

I recall my father-in-law to-be stating that he would assist me and my fiancee/girlfriend to flee to Canada rather than be drafted.  At the time this astounded me, as I had previously thought of him as a fairly conservative guy.  Naturalized Italian...

I remember the feeling of coldness as I watched my same-age, senior-year, male best-friend suite mates celebrating their safe, high lottery numbers.  Was this a turning point? It sure was.  Medical school became  the only remaining graduate field...

The real story was in the number, 292.  By any standard, a high and SAFE number.  I was getting ready to, and did go to Canada, where I hitch-hiked from one end to the other, not always on a natural high.  I was vehemently opposed to the Vietnam War,...

     I was a senior at UCLA in December 1969 when the first lottery was conducted.  I was living in the dorms and the lottery was broadcast over the sound system during dinner.  As lottery numbers and birth dates were called the entire...

I was born on September 8.  On the day of the 1969 draft lottery I sat in my car waiting to hear what my number would be. My birthday was drawn at No. 184. I always thought it would be too low to keep me out of the draft.  So, I shrugged and went about my...

The draft dominated my life choices. I had already joined the Air Force ROTC before the lottery, so I could go to graduate school at UCLA. After the lottery, where I got a very bad number, I ended up leaving ROTC and going into the Public Health Service as a...

My lottery number was 31 and I had to go through some real changes to get out of the draft. I hired a draft attorney named Michael P.  His first suggestion, since my dad died in January 1971, was to try to get me out by having my mother declared dependent on her...

I started graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1968, with a I-A classification hanging over my head.  I spent the year trying to obtain a teaching deferment for being a chemistry teaching assistant.  In February of 1969 I had my...

My recollection is that my lottery number was 2, corresponding to my birth date of April 24th. By the time the lottery came along, I was already enrolled in ROTC at UCLA and had a I-D deferment anyway. As it turned out, I did not have to go to Vietnam, but spent...

I was a junior at UCLA and had a high lottery number (in the 300s), but one of my brothers got a lottery number under 20.  I think it was 13.  I was against the war, like most of my friends. The riots on campus and all over politicized the campus. ...

I remember being none-too-pleased with the number I received in that first lottery.  Fortunately I was a fairly methodical person even at that age and reacted by figuring I'd have to come up with a systematic way to approach the matter.  I was a junior at...

I was a senior at UCLA during the first draft lottery, getting my bachelor's in 1970.  Throughout high school and college, I was opposed to the Vietnam War, feeling that we had no right to be involved in a civil war.  I got married in the summer of 1969, and...

As of January 1969, I was re-classified from II-S to I-A, was notified for my draft physical, and passed the physical.  I was expecting a draft notice at any time.  I was very much opposed to the war (I was a political science major at UCLA, which gives...

I remember watching the lottery.  They were estimating that the first third would go, the second third probably wouldn't but might go, and the third wouldn't go.  I was low second third but got called shortly after graduating from UCLA.I spent around two...

I was a full-time student at Madison, but had my status changed to I-A because I submitted my draft deferment papers to my local North Carolina draft board a few weeks late.  I appealed with all the proper papers, but was turned down 3-0, and was told no...

My dad's death was service related during World War II. I was his sole issue and the only one to continue his name. Because of this, I was granted a deferment. My feeling at the time was great relief, though I would have traded a stint in the service to have grown up...

I was in my junior year at the University of Wisconsin, and unfortunately drew a low number.  I had a student deferment at that time, so stayed in school, finishing four years but needing one more semester to graduate with an engineering degree.  Since the...

I had my undergraduate degree and was already teaching elementary school in the Madison school district before the lottery. My school had a lot of high-need students, many from single parent families. The school district sent yearly letters to my draft board...

The lottery didn't mean much to me, since at the time I was going to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and was in Air Force ROTC.  Growing up in New York City I'd been pretty uptight, very conservative, and didn't really question authority.All that changed by...