Some questions about the Vietnam draft and draft dodging?

Question

A "lottery drawing" was held December 1st, 1969. Was that the first draft, or just the assigning of numbers to birthdays? Was the assigning numbers to birthdays what people refer to as the draft?

Were the lower numbers more likely to be chosen?

Were 18 year old high school seniors, college bound students eligible?

When did people begin to flee to Canada to avoid the draft? Was the summer of 1970 the 'rush'?

Any info would be great, or a website, or a book, it's tough to find a lot of specifics on the draft process.

Answer 1

The peace time draft, as it was so-called had local draft boards. They would decide who would be drafted. I had my pre-induction physical with all my graduating class, men only.
Then, you could get exemptions for college, various hardships, etc. There were 1Ys that would be drafted in case of national emergency.
Then came the lottery. All the men 19 at the time of the drawing and also everyone 26 and younger. We all waited to here the results. Deferments were ended. We were all in it together. Then in January 1970 the fun began. My brother went the first month, my number never came up. Those drafted, many chose to go to Canada, and so to prison. My brother got a medical discharge and I continued to fight against the war. Days were picked in random order so that your birthday was matched to the order yours was chosen. The first month of 1970 they took the first thirty numbers. This went on month after month, until they got to 290. I was 315. Then for the next three months they kept saying none this month. I December 1, 1970 I was free. I took my Selective Service card out of my wallet and tossed it into a drawer. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

From 1948 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means.
In 1973, the draft ended and the U.S. converted to an All-Volunteer military.
during the Vietnam era, the lottery, the first since 1942 began in December of 1969. There were 366 blue plastic capsules containing birth dates 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. Reinstitution of the lottery was a change from the "draft the oldest man first" method. The first capsule drawn contained the date September 14, so all men born on September 14 in any year between 1944 and 1950 were assigned lottery number 1. The drawing continued until all days of the year had been paired with sequence numbers.
College students, or seniros enrolling in college registered for deferred status, and were not eligible for the draft while attending college. It was classification 2-S.
You could also avoid the draft by enlisting in the National Guards or the Reserves. Then there was divinty school. Students studying to be Rabbi's, Priests or Pastors were exempt from the draft also.

Answer 3

The purpose of the draft lottery was for people of draft age to allow to plan there life without any interruption of military service. I was based on your date of birth.
starting with January and ending on December 31
the dates were broken down as follows:
1-122 make no plans you will get drafted
123-244 some what safe from the draft-if the war increased you will be drafted
245-366 allowing for leap year- you were safe from being drafted and you can go forward with any future plans

Answer 4

For some context remember that: Over 50% of eligible males in the pool were never selected. 1969 was the bloodiest year of the war for the US Army when Pres. Nixon announced a change in the conscription process, the first lottery, effective 1970, Hence that year all those in the draft pool knew the likelihood of their being called up. Those potential draftees, about 1/3 of the elible pool of those with low numbers, had a hard one-time choice. US military action in Vietnam stopped in 1972; the draft stopped in 1973,

What made it harder was that while draftees even then were a small minority of the American military, they made up the largest part of the Army's infantry rifleman, These troops had the highest percent of casualties in the military, and about 80% of these grunt casualties were draftees, 19-20 year old kids with no other skills.

The longer view for seeing the Vietnam draft in perspective:
1970 was both the highpoint for conscription and for anti-war action.That year about 50 in 1,000 draftees with the lowest numbers/highest liklihood of induction skipped,:after 30 days of avoidance of the order to enlist, they became desertors. For the seven years of major combat in Vietnam the desertion rate was 14 in 1,000. Something like 4,000 were convicted, and mostly given a dishonorable or geneal discharge, and left to go their own ways. Pres. Carter proclaimed amnesty for desertions during the war.

In Korean War, desertions were about 22 in 1,000.
In WW II, desertions were 63 in 1,000, with over 20,000 sentenced.
The Iraq War figures remain in single digits (4-8 per 1,000)

Answer 5

I enlisted in the USMC in Sept 1966. My buddy, who had been DRAFTED into the USMC before then got extra home leave because I enlisted and (I don't remember how) he got credit for "bagging me". He was eventually killed in VN, so it didn't do him much good did it.

The draft, the lottery, and all that were peachy systems. Bushit, chainy, limberger and all of the chickenhawks managed to dodge the draft quite nicely, thank you. Or rather thank their draft boards.