BROWSE STORIES

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...

Don't recall my exact lottery number. Believe it was in the 30s. I made a genius move and enlisted in the USN for 4 years...3 years 48 weeks. Spent 15 - 16 months on Guam and 24 1/2 months in and out of San Diego including 2 Western Pacific cruises....

My number was 333, which was a very fortunate number, and has made me a believer in 3 (and multiples of 3) as my lucky numbers ever since. If I had lotteryed at number 1 like my friend Jim S. did, I would have tried to get into grad school as fast as I could, or...

I was enrolled in Navy ROTC so my low draft number was irrelevant.  Ever since a Boy Scout trip to Norfolk Naval Station, I had wanted to be a naval officer. I spent the summer after my graduation/commissioning at Brunswick, Georgia attending Combat...

I forgot the date of the lottery, so while the birthdates were being picked, I was playing pinball at a local Chapel Hill pub, oblivious that my future was playing out on tv. The next day (I believe) I saw the list of 365 scroll down my tv, and was astounded when mine...

My story is very simple. I received a number that required me to go through the process of being possibly drafted. I have always had serious migraine headaches so I was fortunately dismissed with a 4-F status. I disagreed with our government's policy towards...

I was a junior at UNC and remember sitting in my dorm room with several friends, watching on TV as the numbers were called during that first lottery. A lot of "dark humor" filled the room as we waited. Among my friends in the room, I turned out to have the...

I arrived at UNC in the fall of 1967 at the height of the Vietnam War.  My father, a former drafted combat infantryman in WWII, advised me to join the Navy and be an officer.  I was accepted into NROTC and began my Navy training.  At the beginning...

I remember listening with some friends as the numbers were drawn and finally mine came up - 263.  Oh shit I said.  I would have never had to go.  You see I was listening at Fort Shafter, Hawaii.  I had been in the Army 11 months.  Oh well!

The draft lottery was on the day before my 21st birthday in 1969. One of my best friends had been forced to drop out of Carolina for a couple of semesters because of mononucleosis and was living at home in Burlington and taking some classes at Elon before returning to...

I went to the North Carolina basketball game that night. After the game, I turned on the car radio and they were giving a recap. I came in on the broadcast about number 130 and listened with great anxiety. After they got up to number 300, I started to think...

I think everyone remembers the lottery, especially the 1969 lottery.  I think the whole Lambda Chi fraternity joined in the TV room to learn their fate.  My birthday was March 15th and my number was 169. One of my closest fraternity brothers Newt...

I got number 329 in the first draft lottery, so I was pretty much assured of not getting called.  I revoked my education deferment and exposed myself to the draft when I started medical school in 1971. The medical draft continued to age 35, but...

I learned my lottery number on my way back from Carmichael Auditorium in Chapel Hill, after a UNC basketball game.  It was 225.  I didn't know quite what to make of it:  it was high enough to make me think there was a chance I would not be drafted, but...

We watched the lottery at the Sigma Nu house. When my number came up I thought I would end up in Vietnam. I got on several waiting lists for reserves and National Guard. Joined the NC guard in Feb 1970. Left for basic training May 12. Before that I took all of my...

Of course I recall the draft lottery well. My number was 232, but I was already a NROTC "contract" student at UNC at the time of the drawing. I graduated from Carolina as an Ensign in the Navy, commissioned by Admr. Elmo "Bud" Zumwalt, who had just...

We all crowded into the TV room at the fraternity house and waited anxiously for the first ball to be drawn.  As numbers were called out, one brother and then another would cry out "NO" or sometimes an expletive.  I kept expecting my birthday to be...

My birthday drew number 311 in the 1969 lottery while in undergraduate school.  This meant that there was little to no chance of being drafted. However, when I went to dental school, this all changed.  Being single meant there was a reasonable chance I could...

It was the night of the lottery...we all gathered in a Royal Park apartment to party and watch the results..I was number 8..September 7th..1948...but we must have been cursed...all of us from Winston-Salem that went to Reynolds High...had lottery numbers under...

I lived in Avery dorm and on the night of the drawing the 6'10" center of the basketabll team was crowing after the basketball game that he had number 1--but of course his height exempted him from service. 208 was my dorm room number and draft number and put...

My number was 325. I was planning on going to medical school, but that deferment extended eligibility so the army could draft you as a physician until age 36. Although the high number provided safety, it also inspired me. I applied for and was granted I-O...

1969-1970 was my senior year in college. I remember watching the first draft lottery on the TV that some guys had across the hall from my room in Old East dormitory; the same TV had informed us of the events at Kent State only weeks before. The lottery was held on my...

I remember the draft lottery well.  One of the first things I'd done freshman year (1968) was to visit a draft counselor, to see what I could do to insulate myself from selection.  I had no idea my natural bad luck at cards and prize drawings was all I was...

Subsequent generations will no doubt have difficulty understanding the anxiety we felt that night, when 366 numbers were drawn that, in many cases, would determine our fates, including even whether we could expect to see our 25th birthday. Like the early Mercury...

There were three reasons to get drunk that night:1. Your number was higher than 175 and you were safe from the draft,2. Your number was lower than 135 and you were going to be drafted, or3. Your number was between 135 and 175 and nothing at all was concluded by the...

I escaped with 287; my friend was number 1.I was a sophomore in a fraternity at Carolina and many of us gathered in the "toob" room to watch the agony that night. One of the brothers sat out a semester and had lost his student deferment for a few months. He...

In 1968-69, as an impressionable soph on the campus of UNC, I watched, read the daily Tar Heel, and observed the demonstrations for the cafeteria workers on main campus, and frankly was very confused. A 19 year-old from a middle class famiy in New Bern, NC was simply...

My number was around 130, but that did not worry me as much as it might have because I was in school and, as a child, had a draft-proof injury when I was run over by a car.  After undergraduate school I went to medical school and again was not worried. ...

The night of the first draft lottery I was sitting in a basement of an apartment in Chapel Hill, NC with my buddies waiting for the lottery to start.  We all were in college for the college student deferment.  When the lottery began everyone gathered around...

     The semester before the lottery, I had signed up to join Air Force ROTC.  I was hoping to be a pilot and eventually get into the astronaut program.  On the night of the lottery, I was studying in the library but got back to the dorm...

Went to the Tarheel basketball game on the day of the lottery, and when we got back to the lodge the guys had been watching TV and had made a list of the lottery numbers and birthdates.  I started at the beginning, and finally got to No. 339.  Oh what a...

            I suppose none of us can ever forget that day in 1969 when the first Selective Service lottery came down. I sat in the lounge in my dorm at UNC-CH with many other hairy folks and watched the draft...

    I had a medium high lottery number (253 I think) and was concerned but not overly fearful of being called up for the draft.  One day in the fall of 1970 I had a particularly stressful and hectic day at work and was really worn out when I...

My student deferment expired in 1972. I had lottery number 93 and had received a notice to report for a physical. One day in December I was watching Walter Cronkite, and he announced that the draft was ending that month after they drafted up through number...

The first lottery didn't have as much visibility with me as the UNC basketball game that night to which I took an attractive freshman. Afterwards, she and I returned to my dorm where I was a resident advisor. Upon stepping off the elevator, some of my inebriated...

I remember the lottery very well. I was a sophomore at Carolina and my older brother was serving a tour in Vietnam. The night of the draft everyone was glued to the TV.  I didn't have to watch long, for my birthdate(9-14-50) was the first number picked. I drew...

My uncle was in the reserve and also worked in the civilian portion of the military as a recruiter. His MOS was that of military police. At the time, I was a light weight wrestler at Carolina. The military guy that interviewed me said that I would be perfect....they...

My lottery number was 329. I was against the war and I never had to make the difficult decision of what to do. I did give it some thought, though. If I were drafted, I would have tried to work in a medical capacity, since I was pre-med. I was extremely lucky.

In December of 1969, when the original lottery was held, a large group of my fraternity brothers had gathered in the "T.V." room at the house. The beer was flowing. My story is pretty dull. I received a low number–– 72, I recall. I had several...

My roommates, suitemates and I all put $5 in a hat with the lowest number winning the pot (the money that is) The 9 of us all gathered around the TV for the "big" drawing. My number was 215. I don't remember when the number was drawn. I just remember the...

I remember it as a tense time.  I had a student deferment and was in the 1st semester of my sophmore year.  I did not want to be drafted out of college but did not object to military service.  I was not opposed to the War in Vietnam and did not support...

Right after the lottery drawing, my roomate and I decided we would go to Greensboro and take the civil service exam to join the NC National Guard. My number was 140, and my roomate's was 100, and we knew that we would probably be drafted as soon as we graduated. We...

I was a sophomore at Chapel Hill when that lottery was held. I remember it as though it occurred yesterday. I have often thought about how that one evening changed so many lives.I was in a fraternity at the time, and several of us who were in the lottery had gone down...

I attended a Tar Heel basketball game the night of the first lottery . When I returned to my fraternity house I learned that my birthdate was the last pulled out of the basket ( June 8th ) Went out drinking with friends to celebrate and sat next to a guy at the bar...

I graduated from The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill in 1971 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration.  I think my Lottery Number was 171.  After graduation I worked for six months for Julius Garfinckel's in Washington, D.C. as...

I was at UNC, not motivated in the general classes, and met a number of veterans who'd come back from Vietnam who were "highly" motivated. They didn't know what they wanted to do, mind you, but they were intensely glad to be in school. Before 1969 college...

I was a sophomore at UNC in the Spring of 1969. I had been at some campus function the night that the first lottery was held. I got back to my dorm room and started listening to the radio, having missed hearing the first 30 or so birthdates. I listened intently for...

I remember watching the lottery number assignments on televison, and my roomate and I were very nervous until our birthdates were drawn.  As my 1969 number was 197, I anxiously followed the draft each of the next several months.  My...

I clearly remember gathering around the TV with my UNC college friends the night the draft lottery took place. One of my friends was in Navy ROTC and drew #11. We all laughed, he was going. He wound up in CIC (combat information section) on board a carrier in the Med...

I was a Junior at UNC and was married and had a small child.  I decided to join the Air Force since my Dad had been in the Army Air Corps in WWII.  I had taken the tests etc. when the lottery was announced.  I decided to wait and see what my number was...