Before the lottery, I visited a UCLA attorney to get counseling on how to deal with the draft board. I had already been scheduled for a physical exam in downtown L.A. I showed up with what seemed like hundreds of other guys. We were divided up into small groups to be examined by a physician. The doctor stood in the center of a circle of guys who were told to drop their shorts while he walked around grabbing everyone’s testicles and instructing us to turn right and cough. Mine went smoothly, but one guy was singled out by the doctor who, after holding his testicles exclaimed out loud, "Wow, nice cough." The group burst out laughing, and the subject turned red from embarassment. In my case, my attorney advised me to drink lots of coffee and take No-Doz to appear sickly. When the doctor examined me, he told me to go home to rest because he was dismissing me.
Thereafter, nothing transpired except that the lottery was employed. My number was 299, which meant I was dismissed because the number was too high to be reached by the draft board. So, you could say I was "saved" by the lottery.