I was in ROTC during my first semester at U.D. but that ended when the semester dead. In a previous post I said that I wore a peace medal to ROTC classes. Eventually my dislike of the Vietnam War would catch up to where most of the country was. Even the archbishop of Atlanta, the person I was named after (that’s a whole other story) was vocal about his opposition to the war.
But the draft didn’t care what your opinions were. I wasn’t drafted because I was 2S – the student deferment. But around this time the draft lottery was instituted. The lottery assigned you a number from 1-365(or 366) based on your birthday.
Now here is were it gets a little bit strange. Was I a draft dodger? Here is what I did. After the draft had been completed for the year (1971 I think) and two more weeks before the end of the year, the draft had only taken those with lottery numbers up to about 95. My number was 130. So, on the advice of an antiwar person on campus, I went to the draft board in Erie and dropped my 2S deferment.
Whoa, what did that do? Well, since I was effectively exposed for that year, I couldn’t get drafted the following year unless they drafted all of the lottery numbers and then went back to previous year’s lottery numbers. As it turns out, it didn’t make a single bit of difference. But I dropped my deferment with the intent of making it less likely that I would get drafted. So, is that draft dodging or not?
