by | Dec 4, 2010 | Stories
I was at Duke from 1965 until graduating in 1969. EVERY YEAR in June while I was in college my draft board (#220 Webster Groves, MO, Dorothy Laburay Clerk–can never forget that witch!) classified me I-A. Each time I had to get a letter from the...
by | Dec 2, 2010 | Stories
I was a graduate student when the first lottery was conducted in 1969, and was not watching when they first started drawing numbers. I joined the telecast when they were around No. 100 and hoped that my number wouldn’t be drawn anytime soon. When...
by | Dec 1, 2010 | Stories
I was one of the lucky ones. Watching the lottery drawing with my fraternity brothers at Duke University, many of whose lives changed during those agonizing few hours, became increasingly gleeful for me with the ongoing consumption of beer, and the number of...
by | Nov 26, 2010 | Stories
I graduated from Duke in 1969 and started that fall at Yale Divinity School. I had an automatic IV-D deferment as a divinity school student, and I felt guilty about it–but not guilty or courageous enough to turn down my deferment and claim conscientious...
by | Nov 23, 2010 | Stories
I received my draft physical notice shortly after graduation in 1969. At the time there were several schemes passed by word of mouth regarding how to fail the physical, among them being to eat a bushel of bananas. My preferred method was to find a doctor...
by | Nov 22, 2010 | Stories
The Vietnam war and the draft were an immense weight on male college students. And of course, far more intense for those non-students who were drafted. Students had the II-S deferment, but there was always this monster–the draft and shipment to...
