BROWSE STORIES

Senior at Univ. of Florida and thought (or really did not have clarity of thought) that I would take my chances on a high number with the lottery. Well, my number came up in the double digits, so the ole boy was gone. Almost too old for the reserves and certainly...

I was a Canadian citizen living in the United States since the fifties.  Back in the sixties, non-citizens still had to register with the U.S government as a landed immigrant.  I don't know why but landed immigrant males still had to register for the draft...

My lottery number was high enough that I was probably safe from the draft--and I had received a scholarship to Tulane which also would have helped. But, I was sufficiently anal about all of this such that I went down to the draft board headquarters to kind of...

I was an announcer on WRUF, the campus radio AM station at the University of Florida the night the first draft lottery was held.   We broadcast the drawing live.  The station didn't play music that would appeal to college students, but I'm pretty sure...

I had #233 and it looked like they wouldn't go past #160-180, so I felt lucky.  However, does anyone else feel that this (draft and lottery) was by far the biggest sex discrimination case never filed or resolved? (Editor's note:  A lawsuit challenging...

I was pretty well stoned throughout this period of my life so I don't recall the details of the lottery drawing itself. I was shacked up with my future ex above Ella's on State in a one-bedroom flat. I know I had a fairly low number and being anti-war, it was no way I...

The first lottery fell on a cold night in Madison. Lottery parties were the order of the day. Watching the event on TV, everyone was drinking and sweating out the results. Some said hell no, they wouldn't go, others said they would. Fortunately for our group, no one...

I enlisted in the Florida National Guard in July of 1968. When the first lottery came around I was an officer candidate in the OCS academy at Camp Blanding, Florida. I went with a number of fraternity brothers (Phi Delts) from the university to watch the lottery on TV...

My number came up at 116 and I fully expected to be drafted. The only reason that I can figure as to why I was not drafted is that the following summer I took a vacation in Canada. In order to travel out of the country as a draft age male you were required to notify...

I happen to be driving to my girlfriend's sorority house to pick her up from dinner.  I'm listening to the radio in the car and the station music is pre-empted by the lottery secretary calling out birthdates in order starting from 1...

As the draft numbers were being drawn and announced I remember thinking that this really didn't mean anything, assuming the war would be over before I graduated in two years. So when my number came up as 28 I wasn't too worried. However two years later it became a big...

The one memory I have of the draft is that it was occurring during a UW basketball game. It was surreal seeing guys watching the game but with transistor radios glued to their ears. Every once in a while someone would stand up and either cheer or say something like Oh...

When I graduated high school in 67 I went to UW- Madison. College gave you a deferment. Then 'satisfactory progress to degree', then lottery. I sat in my girlfriend's apartment on Basset St, Madison and listened to Clyde Coffee on WISM read the dates, live, as they...

I believe it was my third year at UW. I was in the school of music, having changed majors from Engineering to Music Education. I had a student deferment draft classification of 2-S.The night of the lottery, I was practicing trombone in one of the practice rooms...

I missed the early calling of the numbers when I met up with my friends, arriving around No. 50.  No one remembered which ones had been called unless it was theirs.  On the repeat go-around I got mine and it was as if we were in mourning.  The first...

I attended UW-Madison from 1966 through 1973 obtaining both a bachelor's (1970) and master's degree (1973). As we all recall, starting with the Dow Chemical demonstration at the Commerce Building in the Spring of 1967, many of us demonstrated vehemently against the...

My birthday is November 6, 1947, so I was in the 1969 draft lottery and pulled number 76.  In the summer of '68, with a year left to run on my student deferment, I made a "dry run" to Toronto just to see if it would be possible to get over the border,...

I was a very high number (364)--and I was touched when my girlfriend called me up ecstatic. I hadn't been too worried, though--I had figured my terrible vision would keep me out. Still, it was great to hear that the draft wouldn't ruin my protracted adolescence,...

It was a grey day as the numbers began to be called out for the first ever lottery in modern times.  I was a senior in college preparing to graduate in 1970 and unsure as to my future.  Join the service, go to Canada or disappear. I had been 1-A...

 Well today is my birthday (July 9). About 38 years ago I hit the jackpot with No. 1 in the lottery. It forever shaped my future. You could not get a decent job because the first thing they would ask you was "What's your number". Answer would be...

I was a student at the University of Wisconsin--Madison.  1969 was the first year of the draft.  I sat in the packed Rathskellar (Student Union) the night of the first draft and watched as they pulled dates out of the lottery bin.  It was a tough, tough...

I was scheduled to graduate from the University of Wisconsin in June of 1969 but needed an extra semester to finish.  I was classifed 1-A beginning when my student deferment ended in June, and I received a middle level draft number. I started my career...

I joined ROTC as an undergraduate when LBJ announced that there would be no further deferments for graduate students.  Planning law school, I took advantage of the law school deferment for Air Force officers.  By the time the lottery came along, I had...

The night of the lottery, my fiance and I were in my student office at McArdle laboratories on the Wisconsin campus. When I realized that I had a draft number of 8, we burst into tears and sobbed.My first reaction was that I needed to do something other than be in the...

On the day of the first lottery drawing, December 1, 1969, I was taking tests and interviewing for a place in the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.  At the conclusion of a full day of testing and questioning, I...

I was a junior at the UW at the time of the drawing, and felt lucky to receive 247.  I was well acquainted with someone heavily involved with the lottery -- the comptroller of the Select Service System: my father.  He claimed to have had no influence on...

I entered the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1965 thinking I was a conservative Republican, which reflected not only my upbringing, but also the collective views of my extended family. Lots happened in the next few years (anti-war protests, King's...

I graduated high school in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1966 at the height of the war.  My first year of college at St. Norbert in DePere, I was required to take ROTC because the school was so small they needed all the freshmen and sophomores to mandatorily take it to...

Graduated from U. of Wisconsin-Madison after the then usual 4 years in 1970. I considered dropping out in my freshman year to see if I could have more fun pursuing a writing career. (I was making a little money being a part-time campus reporter for the Milwaukee...

I was a senior at UW Madison and attended a basketball game the night of the lottery. I came home and my close friend who knew my birthday thought my number was in the two hundreds. The news came on and I found out I was No. 39. I was not the soldier type, not a...

In June of 1969 I had completed four years and all but about a half dozen of the credits I needed for a Bachelor's degree in Nuclear Engineering when I headed off to Memphis, TN for a summer job with Chicago Bridge & Iron Co.  Toward the end of the summer my...

Leading up to the draft lottery, the news media reminded us of the importance of the numbers. Those with low numbers would most certainly be drafted and soon. The lucky guys with higher numbers, basically above 180 would be "safe".On lottery night there were...

I was at UW-Madison during those "interesting" years. I was able to attend college via a generous scholarship through the NROTC. Following my graduation in January, 1970 with a degree in journalism, I was destined to go directly into the Navy. I did so,...

Lottery night was a crazy night with everyone having a reason to get a little drunk.  One third, including, me celebrated that we were not going.  One third commiserated because they were going.  And, one third agonized because they...

In the summer of 1969 I went to NYU summer school to get enough credits to quickly become a teacher. I returned to school for the fall semester and the 1969 (first ever) lottery. The night of the lottery we were on our way to a basketball game and listening intently...

I never won a lottery before, and haven't won one since, but in 1969 I won bigtime.  I was a Number 1 - Number 1.  I won the jackpot!  How lucky was I?  The first birthdate selected was my birthday, September 14 and if that weren't lucky...

One month before graduation, my father and mother leaned on me to join the Army Reserve.   For the first time in my life, I witnessed my mother cry because she thought I'd be off to Vietnam shortly after graduation so I relented from my youthful view that I...

I was a senior at UW-Madison and received number 27.  I knew that I would be drafted if I didn't enlist so I applied for Air Force pilot school and the National Guard.  The National Guard called first so I enlisted in the Wisconsin Army National Guard. ...

I remember sitting in the apartment with my roommates watching the lottery.  One had a very low number, I was in the low hundreds and two had "safe" numbers.  I graduated in 1970 and received approval to begin graduate school.  In December, I...

I was a supporter of the war...conservative before my time. Because I did support the war, I planned to enlist if drafted, so I wasn't particularly worried, although I was very frustrated by the war protesters and main stream media undermining support within the...

In 1969, I had applied to, and been accepted for, Air Force ROTC.  But, I knew it was unlikely I would get pilot opportunities because of vision.  I received the acceptance letter before the lottery, with a deadline for acceptance of the slot...

Since I was 24 in 1969 and would soon no longer be eligible for a student deferment from the military I anxiously awaited my draft number.  When I learned that my lottery number was 059,  I was worried.  The Draft Resistance...

I was married and had a baby daughter my senior year at the University of Wisconsin which, at the time, had many anti-war protesters filling the streets. Working three jobs and carrying the full load of credits, I stayed busy to say the least. Bar tending, working...

There were 7 of us renting a house on Milton St and we were all eligible that first lottery.  Six of the 7 got numbers under 50, and the 7th was over 350.  It goes without saying that the week following the lottery is more than a bit fuzzy.  All the...

After graduation from the University of Wisconsin, I was waiting for my number (212) to be called.  I was called to take my physical with several others from my old High School.  I remember of the seven of us that took the train into Chicago, four of them...

When I knew my lottery number.. which was 99... in a year where everyone was going up into the 300's if I remember right... it was that fact that made me ask myself... "Do I want to dig fox holes when I graduate from college... or do I want to go in the service...

I remember I was a senior at the U of W - Oshkosh.  I went to the dorm that night to visit friends and watch the lottery.  My number came up 124 and I was worried because I had gone through my four years of college deferment and was heading for Lincoln,...

I don't know what my number was-- didn't care as I had an AFROTC scholarship my senior year. Served 5 yrs in the Air Force, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Marin County, CA, and Washington, DC. My AF experience in electronics and intelligence/security probably helped...

I knew that I would not accept induction into the military.  The lottery was just going to determine the reason I would not be inducted.  If my number was low, I would have to choose between leaving the country or leaving the closet.  Since I was lucky...

My story is short.  I listened to the first lottery on the radio or TV in my dorm room (I can't remember which).  As the birth dates were called I wrote each one down in order.  In the anxiety of the moment I was relieved as 295 other dates were...