Dodging the Bullet

In 1969:

·         The average US house price was $27,550. Gasoline sold for $0.55 per gallon.

·         Neil Armstrong and three others became the first men to walk on the moon.

·         400,000 attended Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, NY.

·         Sugar Sugar (by the Archies) topped the Billboard 100 song list. Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (5^TH Dimension), Honkey Tonk Women (Rolling Stones) and I’ll Never Fall in Love Again (Tom Jones) were in the top 10. The Beatles released Abbey Road.

·         X-rated “Midnight Cowboy” won best picture at the Academy Awards. John Wayne won an Oscar for “True Grit”.  Best screen play and best music went to “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.

·         The first commercial 747 airplanes and the first ATMs went into service.

·         Richard M. Nixon became President, succeeding Lyndon Johnson. Dwight D. Eisenhower died.

·         Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchased the largest selling British Sunday newspaper, The News of the World.

·         Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi came to power in Libya following a coup. 

·         James Earl Ray was sentenced to 99 years for killing Martin Luther King. Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Charles Manson’s cult was charged with murder of Sharon Tate and three others.

·         The first US troops began withdrawing from Vietnam. News of the US massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai was released.

And

I was a 19 year old college sophomore.

And

The US modified its Selective Service process to use a lottery system. The lottery randomly assigned each draft eligible male a number based on his birthdate.  Starting in 1970, the Selective Service would draft men born between 1944 and 1950 into the US Armed Forces based on their lottery number, starting with #1 and working up the sequence until the required number of recruits was inducted.

On December 1, 1969 the Selective Service placed 366 capsules in a drum. Each capsule contained a unique number between 1 and 366. The number one signified January 1; the number two was January 2 and so on -- one for each day of the year 1950. Capsules were mixed then drawn one by one from the drum. The first date drawn received lottery #1, the second date received #2, and so on.*

My group of friends gathered at our college fraternity house that day to watch the drawing on TV. The lottery process meant you couldn’t know at what point your birthday would be assigned its number. We manually kept a table of dates and their numbers so that late comers could find out where they stood.

One of our buddies walked in late and asked, “What’s September 14?”

Our answer: “Oh, Christ, man. That’s #1.”

He stood without moving for some seconds then took a deep breath and asked, “Really?”

We just nodded. He shook his head, turned, and walked out without another word.

Far too soon my birthday was pulled: #92. The Selective Service expected to draft numbers through at least #200.** With #92 I was most assuredly going to get drafted. I could keep my student deferment until graduation in 1972, but beyond that, I was going in the Armed Forces.

Males on campus were drunk well into the next morning -- those with high numbers drinking to celebrate; the rest of us, drinking to forget. The most common question the next day: “What’s your number?” After that, most of us put out of our minds, as best we could, the Selective Service sword over our heads. We focused on keeping our student deferments by progressing normally toward graduation.

I married my high school sweetheart in February 1970. We were blessed with a baby girl in June 1971. In June 1972 I was graduated with my BA degree in mathematics. My faculty advisor convinced me to work toward a master’s degree in statistics. I was lucky to receive a teaching assistantship in mathematics at a large university north of us. It had an excellent program in statistics. We packed our meager belongings and moved within a few miles of the university. We rented a newly built two-bedroom apartment. It was across the street from a concrete factory and, even with that, was serious upgrade from our cramped, dirty, two-room college digs. Our daughter finally got her own room: good for her and good for us.

In September I began attending classes in statistics and computer science. I also taught two units of freshman math as part of my assistantship. My wife worked as a waitress at a restaurant near our apartment. Our daughter was a healthy, happy baby. Things were going well, and then I received notification from the draft board that my student deferment had ended. I was declared 1A: eligible for the draft.

Soon after came a notification to report to Chicago for my pre-induction physical. A couple weeks later I got on a bus before dawn for the two-plus hour ride to the medical center along with 50 or more other potential recruits. It was a quiet group on that bus.

We pulled up in front of a large building somewhere in a not very nice part of Chicago. Dozens of other buses were queued up along the street as well, each disgorging its load of potential draftees. Our driver said, “Remember your bus number: 255. You take this bus back when you’re done. If you miss it, you are on your own to return to your home. Remember 255. It’ll be in this same area when you’re done.” We filed off the bus and entered the large, open, high-ceilinged, warehouse-like facility.

First the recruiters gave us an intelligence test. As I read through the test, I thought about trying to miss every question. I wondered whether by pretending to be that stupid I could get a deferment. However, the recruiters dangled the incentive in front of us that higher scores might qualify you for officer training, which I equated to higher pay. So, I gave the test an 80% effort, figuring they’d probably seen it all anyway, and the “intelligence” test was a mere formality. I thought they might even prefer a little stupid.

Then the physicals started. We had to strip to our underpants and put the rest of our clothes in baskets which we handed to an attendant behind a counter. We pinned the ID tag for our basket to our underwear. It was quite a sight with 100s of nearly naked young guys parading barefoot from examination station to examination station. The stations were not partitioned, just different tables, each with a large number overhead. The process went like this:

“Sit over there and fill out this medical history form. Take your papers to the next station when you’re done.”

“Papers please. You’ll feel a little stick. [Poke. Scribble scribble.] Take your papers to the next station.”

 “Papers please. Bend over, touch your toes. Turn around. Lift your arms. Raise your left leg to your chest. Now your right. [Scribble scribble.] Take your papers to the next station.”

 “Papers please. Open your mouth and say ‘ah’. Turn your head left. Turn your head right. [Scribble scribble.] Take your papers to the next station.”

 “Papers please. Drop your shorts. Turn your head and cough. Again. Pull them up. [Scribble scribble.] Take your papers to the next station.”

“Papers please. Put on these ear phones. Raise your hand on the side from which you hear the tone. [Scribble scribble.] Take your papers to the next station.

Eventually we had a vision check. This was my one glimmer of hope for a medical deferment. I had “pink eye” (conjunctivitis) in my left eye. I didn’t say anything to anyone about it. I assumed that they were the medical ‘experts’ and they’d figure out that a guy with a crud-matted, red, swollen, tearing eye was probably someone to whom they should give special consideration. I didn’t believe that pink eye would qualify me for a medical exemption because it would go away with treatment within the next several weeks – and I had to treat it because it could otherwise lead to serious eye complications. None of the people that examined me said a word. I kept my mouth shut. That was probably stupid, but I’ll never know. (Pink eye is very contagious. I wonder how many recruits I passed it along to during the course of the exams.)

At the last station an officer looked through my accumulated paperwork, put it on a stack with dozens of similar folders, and said, “Get dressed then sit under the Results sign over there until your name is called.”

We were happy to retrieve our baskets, get dressed and wait. I felt dirty all over. I sat with the mob under Results.

Three big football player types waiting with me were all planning to enlist together – in the Marines, I think. Two of the guys skated through their physicals without a problem. They exchanged high-fives as they received news that they had passed the medical exam. The third guy, however, received a medical exemption: something wrong with his feet. He was disconsolate to the point of sobbing and crying on his buddies’ shoulders. His two friends were going off to defend their country - an adventure in foreign lands. He was staying home with a defect he hadn’t even known he’d had.

I thought: Tell you what I’ll do: give me your flat feet and you can have my place in the jungle with your buddies. I’ll stay home. No problem.

My name was called and I sat in front of a desk with a uniformed officer behind it. He flipped through the pages of my exam results, and then said, “You have a bi-lateral calf muscle. That’s about it.”

I asked, “Will that keep me out?”

“No.”

I asked, “Will my pink eye?”

He looked at me, flipped through some of my papers, and said, “That’s not in here.”

“Well, I’ve got it.”

He peered more closely at my face and said, “And, no one caught it. Unbelievable.”

He sighed and got up. He walked over to a knot of uniformed examiners some distance away. He exchanged some words with them while showing them my papers. A couple of them glanced over at me when he waved an arm my way. He left that group and walked through a door and out of my sight.

In 20 minutes he was back. “You’re clear to go. Wait at Section A downstairs for your bus. It departs in thirty minutes. Be there or it leaves you.”

I asked, “What about my eye?”

“When you report for induction, if you still have the problem, they’ll deal with it then.”

The “When you report …” rang like a bell in my head.

We stood outside two hours waiting for our bus 255 to leave from Section A. It was a long ride back home. The exam had taken more than 12 hours door to door. For having done nothing but walk around naked, I was exhausted.

Six weeks later a letter arrived from The President, my orders to report for induction: “GREETINGS: You are here by ordered to report …” I drank a lot that night. In four weeks, I was going to be in the US Army.

The next day I called the local Selective Service office, asking, “How do I get out of this?”

The nice woman on the other end of the phone asked me several questions about my status: In college? Married? Children? Siblings in the Services? Change in physical capability since the medical exam? Finally she said, “You can’t get out of it. You can, however, postpone induction until you receive your degree if you will receive that degree within a year.”

I told an outright lie, “Yes, I’ll receive my degree within a year.”

She said, “You’ll need to complete Form XYZ and have your faculty advisor sign it verifying that you’ll receive your degree within a year. You can pick up the form at the post office.”

I drove straight to the post office and from there to my faculty advisor’s office on campus. I filled out the form while I waited for him in the hall outside his office. His door opened, a student came out, and I barged in. “Dr. [Name Withheld to Protect the Innocent], sign this please,” I said, handing him the form.

He glanced at the page and saw “Selective Service” at the top. He frowned, sat down behind his desk and read the document. He said, “I can’t sign this unless we determine you’ll graduate within a year.”

I said, “Oh, just sign it.”

He said, “Can’t really. It’s a federal offense to falsify information. I can’t risk jail, but don’t panic. Let’s work through this.”

He pulled my university paperwork from a file drawer (1972: pre-PC, pre-Internet). He flipped through pages in my folder. “So to graduate you need 38 hours of credit. You’re taking 9 hours this semester. If you take the maximum  allowable 18 hours next semester and the maximum 12 hours in summer session, that’ll give you enough credits to get your MS degree in a year.”

Now we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. My teaching assistantship was the only way I’d been able to afford to go to grad school. It specifically limited me to 9 hours per semester. To do what he was suggesting would mean I’d have to give up my assistantship -- financially impossible. And even if I did manage to swing it financially, it was probably impossible for me to sign up for 18 hours of classes in a single semester that would actually progress me toward my major. The university just didn’t offer the specific statistics classes in any one semester that I needed to graduate in that short of time. We both knew this.

He said, “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re going to sign up for that number of hours.”

I mostly looked him in the eye and said, “I’m going to sign up for that number of hours.”

He signed the form and handed it back to me with a wink and a grin. “Good luck.”

I mailed the form to the Selective Service on the way home.

A couple weeks later, I received a letter saying that my orders to report had been deferred until July next year -- 1973. I’d bought a reprieve. I still thought I’d have to go into the Army, and I would go when called, but at least we had several months to prepare for it.

Life settled into a tough but manageable routine. I’d drive to the university early in the morning then spend the day attending my classes, teaching freshman math, studying, going to computer lab, etc. I’d get home in the evening. Often I’d leave the car running while my wife came down, jumped in the car, and drove to her waitress job. I’d feed our daughter, give her a bath, and put her to bed. I’d study and then go to bed. I’d feel my wife crawl in with me when her shift was over early in the morning. And then the alarm would go off and we’d start the routine again. It was difficult, but not as difficult as my being in the Army was going to be.

Then a miracle happened. President Richard M. Nixon officially saved my ass on 27 January 1973 by instituting an all-volunteer army and canceling the Selective Service draft.  To this day I firmly believe that he single-handedly saved my life by not sending me to Vietnam. I have an awful premonition about what would have happened if I’d been shipped over there. I also know, from having seen my buddies returning, that at the very least I’d have developed a significant drug problem. For keeping me out of all that I’m eternally grateful and it really doesn’t bother me how many other stupid mistakes Nixon made in his Presidency.

Three weeks after the announcement that the draft had ended, I received a Selective Service letter canceling my orders to report for induction. I still have that letter. I was clearly more drunk celebrating this good news than I had been drowning my sorrows when I got my letter to report for induction.

My life suddenly was lighter – like the difference between a gloomy tropical jungle and a sunny Illinois cornfield. I had a future for which I was in as much control as anyone ever is. I received my MS degree in 1974. I took a job with a large corporation in New Orleans. I helped raise our daughter, and generally I have had a good life since then.

Thanks, Tricky Dick. No matter what they say about you, you’re number one with me. You helped me dodge the bullet -- probably a lot of them.

* Later it was shown that the lottery may not have been perfectly random, but the results stood.

** In reality #195 was the highest number drafted during 1970.