by | Jun 20, 2014 | Stories
For 45 years I have been haunted by the fact that if I had been born less than four hours earlier my lottery number would have been 359 and, most certainly, my life would have been very different. Standing on the steps of a college dorm on that evening in December,...
by | Jun 17, 2014 | Stories
Prior to the draft lottery, I had received a notice from Selective Service to report for my Armed Forces physical the day after college graduation. I figured that if I was going to be drafted, I would explore volunteering so that I’d have some say in what I...
by | Jun 4, 2014 | Stories
The night of the 1969 draft lottery, I was a junior at the University of Georgia. I was a junior college transfer. We were gathered around the TV in the fraternity house. I thought I had missed my number as it was getting towards the end. I then heard my birthday and...
by | May 12, 2014 | Stories
I watched the lottery on TV with my fraternity. As our birthdates were selected we left for the bar, some out of depression and some out of joy.I spent the following 3 years staying in school. After graduation I spent the next 6 months appealing my...
by | May 10, 2014 | Stories
I remember the draft well. Pass all your classes, you keep a II-S deferment. Fail one class, I-A! One of my friends failed his English term paper because of run-on sentences and fragments. (Today your computer would catch those errors). He failed the class, was...
by | May 1, 2014 | Stories
Like B.C and A.D., the lottery divided my life on earth into two distinct parts: before this and after this. In advance of the lottery, military experts had informed us that people with numbers lower than about 150 were sure to be drafted. My number was 83....
