I attended UW-Madison from 1966 through 1973 obtaining both a bachelor’s (1970) and master’s degree (1973). As we all recall, starting with the Dow Chemical demonstration at the Commerce Building in the Spring of 1967, many of us demonstrated vehemently against the War, racism, Martin Luther King’s assasination and the Nixon Administration’s corruption throughout this era.
In the first draft lottery (1969) I was lucky enough to "win" the No. 19 spot…which of course meant that I was called to my physical. Since I was born in New Jersey I went to my physical in Newark, NJ. I had obtained all sorts of written reasons from whatever doctors I could remember trying to convince the draft board that I would not be very useful. I had had adolescent asthma, concussions and amnesia from my days as a wrestler in high school, and of course was psychologically unfit to serve. Nonetheless, the draft board took its time while I had sleepless nights, nausea and the overall fear that comes with powerlessness. Long story short, they decided that the asthma might cause me to sneeze in the jungle, so I was excused with a 1-Y classification. I certainly will never forget the night before my physical in which I had no sleep, threw up regularly, and generally freaked-out, using the vernacular of the times. Today, my kids just laugh as I recount those days. Of course, if we had a draft today for Iraq, perhaps our children would be as active as we were to add their voices to ours to get us out of Iraq today.