A veteran looks back
December 1, 1969, was a changing day in my life. On that day was the first military draft lottery since WWII. The lottery used birthdays to determine the random order in which you would be chosen for military service in 1970 during the Vietnam war. At that time I was a senior at Northwest Missouri State University at Maryville, MO.
Lucky me, I had lottery #95. My birthday was December 24. I was going to graduate in the spring of 1970. After the lottery picks, all males went to the local tavern to celebrate whether they had a high number assuring them of not getting drafter, or crying in their beer because they got a low number and were at the mercy of Uncle Sam and the Selective Service. That year all lottery picks 195 and below were used to fill the ranks. There were seven ways to avoid being drafted.
1. You could enlist in another branch of service like the Marines, Navy or Air Force, but they wanted four years of your life. Being drafted into the Army only required two years, but it carried a higher risk that you would go to Viet Nam. I only wanted two years in the military.
2. You could register as a conscientious objector using religion as a crutch – like Quakers, Amish, Mennonites, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. During the Viet Nam war, 170,000 men received this deferment.
3. Getting married and having children (also known as “knocking up your girlfriend program.” When the draft lottery was first held in 1969, women whose husbands and boyfriends had high risk draft numbers were 40 percent more likely to get pregnant than women whose souse or friend had a low risk of being drafted. In 1970 President Nixon issued an executive order changing the law that men with children were no longer “automatically” deferred.
Now that those babies born in 1970 are 55 years old, it is time to have an honest conversation with your parents. The question should be asked, “was my conception due to a passion of love, or due to the fact that the male had a chance of getting drafted into the military?” Wouldn’t that be an ice-breaking topic after your turkey dinner?
4. Attending college was another way to avoid or delay the draft. Poor working class men, particularly men of color, were disproportionately drafted.
5. Claiming a medical condition would get you out. Friendly doctors would invent a condition for wealthy and better connected Americans to take advantage and avoid the draft.
6. Burning your draft card, or returning your draft card to the Selective Service board, or failing to show up for a pre-induction physical, or refusing to step forward during an induction ceremony also worked. About 570,000 men were classified as draft offenders – 8,750 were convicted and 3,250 were imprisoned.
7. The last way to avoid the draft was to flee the country. Between 40,000 to 100,000 men fled, mostly to Canada and Sweden.
I was lucky. I was sent to Hanau, West Germany as a military policeman. My time in the service was one year, six months, and 14 days, but who was counting? Nixon ended the draft in 1973 and Carter gave blanket pardons for all non-violent breaches of the Selective Services Act.
This war was a very sad and destructive chapter in American history. Over 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese perished. To this day we are still paying the price which includes alcoholism, drugs, smoking, homelessness and mental illness, plus disabilities.
Denny Lautner, Jefferson
