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David--not sure how this is relevant, but I graduated high school and entered college when I was 17 in 1967. This was at a small university in deep East Texas, near Willie Brown's hometown. In the spring of 1968, I was sitting on the front porch of my dorm watching the girls walk by when my roommate interrupted my reverie by waving a section of the Dallas Morning News in my face. I asked him what could be more important than watching some of the most beautiful women in the world walk right by our front door. "Mike", he said, "have you ever heard of Viet Nam?" "Of course" I said. He said, "well do you want to go? Not especially" I said. "Well, find your birthday in this article on the Viet Nam lottery. If you're number is less than 181, you're going". "Holly Cow, let me see the list". I had a draft card but never thought much about going to war. My number was 183, my roommates, 79. I finished school, and he enlisted. I ended up getting a Ph.D. at Texas Tech well after the war was over, but some of the people I knew in Nacogdoches at Stephen F. Austin State University went to Viet Nam and never came home again. What are the economics of that?

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Interesting. It would have been either 1969 or 1970, though, because they didn't have the lottery in 1968. As you know, we have Stephen F. Austin State College (it was college at the time) in common.

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I just checked. My memory was correct. 1969. BTW, I checked the NYT many years later to see what my number would have been: 156. But I think someone told me that they didn't need to go that high, that if you were above about 130, you were safe.

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David---thanks I stand corrected, it was 1969. The draft number that cut off induction was 195. By the way, I was just on the SFA campus two weeks ago, still a beautiful place. A group of students were protesting Gaza--I asked the leader if she knew what the difference was between Hamas and Hezbollah. She thought Hamas was a "Peace" organization and Hezbollah were the terrorists. Guess a college education today is not what it used to be.

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Yup.

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Really sad. These kids are weak and ignorant. BTW. I served in Southeast Asia 1962 to 1964. I enlisted in the Navy.

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