The lottery to end all lotteries...

In the late 1960s students had a deferment from being drafted and sent to Vietnam. But if you quit school or whatever, you were open to being called up...

That all changed on 1 December 1969, with the first of the lotteries that drew out the dates of the year - and the order that they were drawn was the order that you'd get called up, regardless... As a student, you could finish the current semester, or the end of the school year if you were a senior.

I wasn't included in the first draw - that covered guys born before 1951. My draw came up the next year...

With a group of others, I walked to some place on what was then 19th Street (now Martin Luther King), somewhere near the top of the hill that goes down toward Lamar Blvd, to read the results in the window of some sort of news place.

Me? I got a high number - but it was a sad day for many others with smaller numbers. I remember some guys on the South Mall with tee shirts with their numbers written/printed on them...

Sometimes it really was just the luck of the draw...