Friggin' A! I managed to avoid getting drafted into the stupid army after all! Now I can go back to my lazy-ass lifestyle without having to get up at 4 in the morning and do pushups! (I'll also be able to lose the goatee and excessive hair I grew so my chances of getting drafted would be smaller. Double yay!)
Believe it or not, your future is determined by raffle. If you're declared to be physically fit for service, you have to pick a number out of a tombola, and if it's too low, too bad, you just won 4-12 months of military service, after which you can declare yourself a conscientious objector and get slave labour instead for the same period of time. I drew a high number, meaning I won't even have to be in the reserves
Didn't the Australians have something similar during Vietnam, based on the date of birth which they read out on TV / radio ? ( I think I read it in a book called The Odd Angry Shot, but it was a while back so I may be wrong )
During the Vietnam war, the US had a draft lottery. Each day of the year was assigned a number (I think they pulled numbers out of a drum, just like in a Bingo game), and if your birthday had a high number, you were safe; if it had a low number, you got drafted. One of my friends got number 4 (bad news), but he ended up with a medical deferrment, due to an ear problem.
Kinjiro: That's EXACTLY how we still do it over here, drum and all. Scarlet Mist: You gotta be reeeaaly good at faking that injury, since they're used to people wanting to BS themselves out of serving. Failing that, you might be able to bribe your doctor into making up a phoney medical record stating that you're unfit for duty or something. Really no other way around it, apart from mental conditions and lots of prior convictions. You can't even get out of serving on account of homosexuality anymore, which totally ruined my plan of being let off by meeting up dressed like Boy George Edit: Dear yanks. I understand that your government is currently making plans for reinstating the draft. Don't let them do this. The draft sucks, and in your case, it would mean being sent off to some far-off place where a bunch of guys would be trying to kill you.
I always hated the stupid lottery idea for the draft -- such a cavalier way of doing something that would negatively impact so many lives. Like making some big, silly game out of it. At uni, somebody posted a big chart of all the days of the year and their assigned numbers. December 25 got a very low number, and somebody wrote next to it, "Will Jesus go?"
Lots of european countries have the draft. SOme you just have to go there is not even a rafffle, but look at the big picture the Finns are not going to war anytime soon, neither are the Danes so it is nor nearly as bad as us in the U.S. I'm prime dratff material ie, Lower calls, minority, 18 no collage (yet) etc)... And we are gonna have to fight in the bloody desert with a-rabs....
I'm still told that is only a rumor. Doesn't matter, hopefully I'll get accepted into ROTC before I get drafted as a ground pounder. =/ PL
