A Close Call - Michael

Winning the lottery is typically considered a good thing. Unless that lottery is for a draft number and ticket to the Vietnam War. No more escape hatches or deferments to avoid the war. Unless, of course, your daddy was rich and influential. Or unless you were able to cook up an injury and wiggle off the hook. Nope. John Fogarty said it best, ‘I ain’t no fortunate son.” If your number came up, you were screwed. To put it politely.

My number came up. Number 21 out of 365 might as well have been #1. I was a sophomore at Arizona State University. I knew guys who had gone to Vietnam. I knew guys who came back messed up. I knew guys who never came back. The war was winding down, and long gone was the idealistic and naïve perspective that it was a noble act to fight communism. It was meatgrinder, fought by the middle and lower class of America. Eisenhower warned us about the insatiable appetite of the miliary industrial complex. It was front and center, gobbling up anyone in its way. It needed grist for the mill. Old Ike was right.

Everyone knew that the military draft was slowly grinding to a halt. We just didn’t know when. My clock started ticking with a request to report for my pre-induction physical at an army location in Phoenix. Aside from missing one eye, one leg, or having a yellow streak up your back, you passed with flying colors. Stand in line, drop your shorts and cough! Congratulations.

Now I waited. And I wondered. What to do when Uncle Sam’s letter arrived. While I didn’t have connections to dodge the draft, I was smart enough to know that an army grunt in a rice paddy was a very bad idea. I spoke to the Air Force recruiters. Four years there seemed a better option that two years on a front line with the army. That was my plan. When the letter arrived, I’d take it to the Air Force and enlist. This would put college on hold for the foreseeable future and send my life in an entirely new direction. In fact, some other guy would be sitting here now, reading to this esteemed writers’ group.

I waited some more. And then it happened. Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird announced the end of the draft in January 1973. It was over. Done. Kaput.

For those of you who like irony, four years later I enlisted in the United States Army.