apartment. I was a first year law student. One guy was in the Coast Guard, one
was in Navy ROTC and due to be commissioned an Ensign, the third was a draft
dodger who swore that if he got drafted he was heading to Canada. I was a KU
ROTC Graduate and a commissioned Army 2nd Lieutenant Infantry on academic delay
from active duty to attend Law School at KU.
7th in the draft. The Coast Guard swabbie was #3 and the Navy squib was #10. The future Canadian was #364. He did not go to Canada and we would have royally
kicked his arse and dragged him kicking and screaming to the induction center if
he had tried.
I was a freshman from Bartlesville, Oklahoma in the summer of 1965 and
therefore in the Class of 1969. I witnessed the demolition of old Frazier Hall
on my first day of summer previews. I was the first resident of McCollum Hall
and recently witnessed the demolition of that Dorm. I was on the KU varsity
rifle team and Big Eight All Conference all 4 years. As a result I was heavily
recruited by the Army ROTC and the Women’s Physical Education department to be
an instructor for the ROTC and the all-female shooting phys. ed. class.
Bartlesville was and is a very wealthy town with almost zero high school
dropouts and most of the high school graduates went to college. As a result, due
to college deferments, the draft pool of available single and married 18-27 year
olds was quickly exhausted and they started taking college deferred students.
My sophomore year I recall that in order to keep the deferment we had to take a
draft exemption test. I did quite well but was talked into joining the Army
ROTC upon the condition that I was to instruct the military marksmanship classes
and could go through in 3 years instead of 4. The ROTC deferment was untouchable
by the draft boards, so if I was going to go to war I was going to do it on my
own terms as an officer and leader.
After graduation from Law School at KU with a JD, I remained in the
Infantry and turned down a promotion to regular Army Captain and stayed in the
Infantry for 30 years retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel having served through
Vietnam, Grenada, Bosnia, Panama, and Desert Storm. In my spare time I was a
practicing attorney in Springfield, Missouri from 1973-the present.
As for the random chance of the lottery—my life choices prior to the
lottery made it totally irrelevant and merely an interesting anecdote