I had filed as a non-military, non- combatant conscientious objector, and was preparing to defend my claim, when the number came up high. I was classified 1-H, a holding status, so I never had to defend my beliefs.
I knew I didn’t want to go into basic training and learn how to kill someone.
If my claim had been approved, I would have worked as some kind of medic.
As it was, the next 2 years, I worked in hospitals, halfway houses, and nursing homes, following a similar path.
I have been attending a Quaker meeting for the last 6 years, finding myself again among pacifists.
I haven’t changed my mind. War does not solve any problems, it only kills people.
Didn’t getting a college deferment also increase the maximum age you could be drafted at from 26 to 35? That being said I doubt the Army would’be been in much of a hurry to draft men in their 30s when they still had an ample supply of men in their teens/early 20s.
I would have been #21, but I’m female and wasn’t alive at the time. My dad was #98 that year and the right age. He didn’t get drafted because he worked for the Department of Defense in a position that supported the war effort (as did my mom). I’m pretty sure that was a consideration when he applied for the job (he started there in '64 or '65).
The 1970 Draft lottery covered the year my father was born. From the website, I understood there were no other lotteries for the birth year 1948. Is that incorrect?
I still get sick to my stomach remembering the day they drew the numbers.
Those of you reading this who are about 18-21 or so - think what you would feel like if you watched TV, knowing if your birth date number was going to send you off to Afghanistan or not.
Now you might understand why college campuses were rife with demonstrations and everyone was quite politically motivated back then.
Plus men who weren’t even old enough to vote were still subject to the draft. You could be drafted at 18, but couldn’t vote (in most states) until you turned 21. That didn’t change until 1972.
Just missed draft eligibility by a few years but would have been #358 anyway, so no sweat. I could have proudly urged on my compatriots to go kill those Commies from the comfort of my nice, safe living room.
To this day he considers himself very lucky. He was born in 1949 so it was near the end. He had a six year commitment so he was still in many years after the War was over.
There are only four or five years in the hole where you were too young for Nam but too old for when Carter reinstated registration. A co-worker of mine is in that hole and had one hell of a time convincing some bureaucrat one time that he really wasn’t required to register and didn’t have a number.
