Reply #13: I was there...

[kcwayne]

The college deferments were eliminated in the last couple years of the draft. With the deferments, only those that could not afford to go to college were getting drafted, and the troops were overwelmingly drawn from the poor segments of society. It was fundamentally unfair.

The lottery was introduced to address irregular application of who got drafted. A draft board was set up in various communities, and the board selected names from the community of those that would be sent based on national directives for how many were needed. If you lived in a small community and were known to and not liked by the local board members, you could count on getting picked.

With the lottery, the board could only select you if your birthday was assigned to the lottery number being pulled. But even then, the draft board could screw with you by selecting you over another person with your birthday.

So it was best not to be under the jurisdiction of a small community draft board, unless you have pull with the board and can get them to overlook you. The ability to influence the board helped most influential (monied) members of the community keep their kids out of the draft. And if the board could not help, there was always the last option, pull strings at the National Guard and get Bif a cushy assignment, ala Dan Quayle and George Bush.

The other deferments were all based on religion, medical, or morals. You could claim you were a homosexual, but back then people were not to keen on being outed by the government.

You could be a concientious objector, and after alot of grilling by some government hacks, they may approve your petition. You would have to provide some other form of government service if they approved your petition. I think joining the Peace Corps was an approved alternative. It was difficult to qualify for this however. It helped if your positions were well known prior to your petition. Mohammed Ali went to jail for draft evasion, even though he claimed to be a concientious objector and religiously compelled not to kill. Of course they loved making an example of him.

Being a Quaker was one way of avoiding conscription, but you could not just join the Quakers and then run down to the draft board and file a petition. (I wonder if being a Southern Baptist or Born Again Christian will get similar treatment now, oh wait, Born Agains like George don't seem to have a problem with killing, do they?)

Another thing people did was try to get classified 4F (medical). There were all kinds of urban legends about sitting on ice all night before your physical to alter your blood pressure, or "untraceable" narcotics that would give you heart flutters and such. Diagnostics have advanced so far since then that it would be difficult to pull this one, and I doubt that many were successful even back then.