Richard Rotman

My hands shook as I tore open the envelope from the U.S. Selective Service system. Inside was a ‘Notice to Report to a Pre-Induction Physical,’ the final step before being drafted and sent to Vietnam. My 2-S student deferment, which kept my friends in Glencoe out of the war, had ended.

Young men from urban and rural areas who could not afford college did get drafted, and 57,939 died in the insanely ill-conceived war. Finally, recognizing the unfairness, a lottery was instituted; 366 blue plastic capsules containing birth dates were placed in a large glass container and drawn by hand to assign order-of-call numbers to all men within the 18-26 age range specified in Selective Service law. Yours truly had number 15, which meant certain selection.

My mother began making arrangements for me to dodge the draft in Montreal. Other options included allegedly safer military service – the National Guard (George W.’s out) or the Navy (John Kerry’s choice).

 I had been planning to go to grad school at Columbia University, so I consulted a lawyer who helped draftees. As it turned out, my birth year, 1951, was the last to allow student deferments and that shielded me until I finished my degree. When I was done, Nixon ended the draft and the all-volunteer Army began.

Since then, I have spent so much time wondering what I would have done if my only choice was dodging the draft or enlisting? Would I have served or fled? How would my life had been different in Montreal—or in the Army or Navy? I will never know, but it still torments me as to whether I’d have taken that step forward – or not.