The night of the first draft lottery all the guys in my fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, were listening to the radio for the draft numbers to be called. When my birthday (July 21st) was called as No. 27, there was a great deal of screaming and yelling at my expense by my friends for my poor choice of a day to be born on.

Shortly after the announcement, a couple of guys in the house, who were in ROTC, came into my room with an M-1 rifle and proceeded to teach me how to do close order drill, clean the rifle, etc. Afterwards, a bunch of us went to a beer bar to celebrate or drink our sorrows. The guys with draft numbers above 300 paid for the beers for of those of us below 50. Fortunately for me I didn’t get drafted.