B2431 wrote:

From: Dweezil Dwarftosser

snip

Horse****.
If you were classified 1-A (physically fit and mentally competent)
you would be drafted, period, at age 19 or upon completion of your
four-year college deferment. (Ask me how I know. There was no
draft lottery back then.) With a 1-A classification, most employers
would not hire you - because you would definitely be gone in less
than six months (and they'd be required by law to rehire you if
you returned).


There never was a 100% draft of 1-As. Just because you were 19 and 1-A didn't
guarantee you would be drafted. I don't know what the percentages were, but I'd
venture to say it was less than 50%. For every man I personally knew at the
time that was drafted there were a few that weren't.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

The rate varied by locality and time period. When I faced the draft in 1968 it was
essentially 100% for me. I actually heard someone ( no, not me ) commenting to a
friend of mine how lucky my friend had been to get polio as a child and thus be
safe from the draft. I knew years in advance I would have to go. I raised my hand
on May 1, 1968. When I got back to school from that little trip, my notice to
report for a draft physical was in my mail box. It was scheduled for the week
before graduation.

Bob McKellar, who is not whining or complaining, just explaining the times