The Night the Draft Lottery Decided Their Lives: 15 Things Every Vietnam Draftee Remembers

The Field Library: 4 books from our films, made for veterans and their families → https://thepngfiles.gumroad.com A grandson clears out an old desk in Beckley, West Virginia, and finds a brittle envelope. Inside is an Order to Report for Induction, and it starts with one word: "Greeting." "Everybody asks me about Vietnam. Nobody ever asks me how I got there." In this countdown, a drafted rifleman from West Virginia (lottery number 46, Americal Division, 1970–71) remembers how a generation went from the draft board to Vietnam: the Las Vegas wedding rush of August 1965, the card in your wallet and the 4,000 local boards, General Hershey and "channeling," volunteering for the draft, the letter, the "socks and jocks" physical, the Marines drafting men out of line, Project 100,000, the oath and one step forward, the 50-cent haircut and the jet injector, the drill sergeant and the campaign hat, the last month at home, the day the draft ended in 1973, the draftees who carried the rifles, lottery night on December 1, 1969, and the 6 a.m. bus. Were you drafted, or did you enlist? What was your lottery number, and where did your bus leave from? Tell us below. Chapters 0:00 Grandpa, what is this? 1:41 #15 The wedding rush 3:48 #14 The card in your wallet 6:23 #13 Volunteering for the draft 8:30 #12 The letter 10:39 #11 Socks and jocks 13:02 #10 You're a Marine 15:05 #9 The men the Army had turned away 17:14 #8 One step forward 19:25 For veterans: Agent Orange presumption + where was your basic training? 20:21 #7 The haircut and the air gun 22:46 #6 The hat 25:10 #5 The last month at home 27:17 #4 The day it ended 29:24 #3 The rifleman was a draftee 31:40 #2 Lottery night 34:28 #1 The bus 36:33 Back to the kitchen in Beckley 37:43 What was your lottery number? For veterans: the VA presumes Agent Orange exposure for anyone who served on the ground in Vietnam. Under the PACT Act (2022), hypertension and MGUS were added to the presumptive list. https://www.va.gov/disability/eligibi... (Not affiliated with the VA.) Veterans Crisis Line: dial 988, then press 1. About the veteran's voice: his memories are a composite drawn from many published veterans' accounts. The facts, names and figures in the narration come from the sources below. Quotes from Walter and Nick come from their interviews with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. Sources Selective Service System, Induction Statistics and "The Vietnam Lotteries"; official 1969 lottery results (Journal of Statistics Education data archive) Lawrence M. Baskir & William A. Strauss, "Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation" (1978) Christian G. Appy, "Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam" (1993) National Archives, Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics Library of Congress Veterans History Project (Indian Prairie Public Library): interviews with Walter Toldness (2005) and Nick Darien (2018) Wes Abney, "Live From DC, It's Lottery Night 1969," HistoryNet; David E. Rosenbaum, The New York Times (4 January 1970) "20 Questions About the Draft," U.S. News & World Report (10 July 1967) Las Vegas Weekly, "The Vietnam Wedding Rush" (2005); Joan Didion, "Marrying Absurd" (1967) Hamilton Gregory, "McNamara's Folly" (2015) U.S. Army, history of the drill sergeant program; Fort Polk history Fred Childs, Charlie Company stories (charliecompany.org) Ann Arbor District Library, Ann Arbor News photo archive (1966) The Seattle Times, "Last Draftee, Who Tried To Hide, Now Believes In Service" (1993) Footage: U.S. National Archives, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and Department of Defense films (public domain). Some scenes are AI-generated illustrations.