Many a Tear Has to Fall, But It's All in the Game

MY draft board does not like me Mrs.-, the fifty-five-year-old secretary and dottering mainstay of the board, continually answers my snide inquiries and diatribes with short formal notes on mimeographed forms. I don't even have the satisfaction that they take my hate notes seriously. They claim they simply administer the system, following directives from Washington. But they are humorless, and totally without compassion.

I don't think my draft board likes anyone. I have learned not to take this personally. After all, they are fucking around with my life. But they are fucking around with everyone else's too. I bet they enjoy fucking around. That is why the lottery is driving them mad. Ever since the drawing after Thanksgiving, confusing and conflicting reports have come from all sectors: the Pentagon and the draft boards have been at continual odds in their projection of who will be the "winners." Many articles have been written decrying the lottery, holding it up as a sham.

The Pentagon maintained that about 45 per cent of those in the 1-A pool would be drafted, assuming enlistment and draft calls remained constant. They said they would probably not get past the first two-thirds; some from the gray area, the second third, might not be drafted. Yet the heads of Selective Service boards in Massachusetts, Illinois, New York City and numerous other places insisted just one week after the drawing (and many continue to assert) that in order to meet quotas they would have to take everyone in the lottery pool. What is going on? Why this vast difference in projections between the Pentagon and the local draft boards?

DRAFT BOARDS have difficulty accustoming themselves to the idea that someone might get out simply because his number is not reached. They probably enjoyed the old system whereby they could channel you into a "socially useful job" by dangling a 2-A in front of your nose. Or, they could keep you on the hook, giving you a deferment for a while until they needed you. Last year, Local Board No. 3 in Great Neck (it has since moved to Manhasset, New York, because of a fire) drafted only those 221/2 and older under the old system of eldest first. Thus, even if you were 4-A in Great Neck last year, there was a good chance you would not be taken if you were young enough. They had more 1-A's than they needed. The board has the habit of making it easy for men to get deferments as long as there are more men than slots to be filled. By giving deferments they really weren't doing any favors. As you approached 26 it became more and more difficult to get a 2-A, for they were drafting men of that age. By giving deferments to the young and taking them away from the old, they were able to maintain a large degree of control for many years, finally getting you if it pleased them. But the lottery supposedly changed all that, reducing the years of eligibility from seven to one. Or did it?

As a result of the lottery, the draft boards are losing some of their arbitrary power. During the first week or two after the drawing. men with numbers in the three hundreds talked about dropping out of school or quitting their deferrable jobs. The draft board's sphere of influence had been radically reduced as some men faced absolute freedom. All of a sudden it was possible that thousands of young men would no longer be under their yoke, responsive to their whims, chained to their relativistic sense of justice and fairness. My board hates me, and you, all of us. They say they are just doing their job. Some job!! All of a sudden, their control was slipping.

THE PENTAGON and the Army have specific manpower needs. Impersonal and far away, they don't much care whom they get, where they get them from, or whether some get off free-as long as they get enough men. They do not fear that the supply will dry up. Indeed, one of the biggest problems the Army faces is devising institutionalized means to climinate men. They create artificial categories to get rid of the overflow. On the other hand, those who man the draft boards wince at the thought that some will escape their arbitrary tentacles. Immediately, reports flowed from state and local selective service that all would be drafted to meet the quotas. These dictates quickly quieted those who thought they had newfound freedom. Many who had talked about leaving school and jobs reconsidered. The tide had been stemmed.

In order to understand the lottery system, it is crucial to remember that it is a month by month snapshot of available men. It is a changing pool-some enter when they become eligible for induction and others leave as they are granted deferments or fail their physical examinations. It now seems that the rate at which numbers are called will slow up appreciably in the near future rather than continue at the present rate of thirty per month.

By extrapolating the current 30 numbers a month to the whole year, many people, including the local boards, have arrived at the mistaken conclusion that no number will escape the draft this year. They argue that thirty times twelve is three hundred sixty, and that just might as well be everyone. The major flaw in this argument is the assumption that the pool of eligible men is stagnant. Rather, it changes from month to month. The pool is composed of 1-A's who have exhausted their appeals and have passed their physicals. There are many men who have been reclassified 1-A but are not yet "indictable" and hence are not in the pool. Many with low numbers have not yet had physicals and some have yet to be called for personal appearances which they requested months ago. Therefore many whose numbers have already been reached were not in the pool when the Pentagon examined the number of men available and calculated how far the lottery would have to reach to fill national quotas.

Many are just now having physicals as draft boards reduce the backlog which built up while the nation awaited the outcome of the lottery. Since not all the 1-A's with low numbers were in the pool (that is, totally processed) earlier this year, the Pentagon has been forced to dig deeper into the numbers to meet its quotas. While the pool changes each month, the order of call reverts back to number one each month and goes as far as the number set by Washington. For example, the March call was not only for numbers sixty to ninety, but one to ninety. We can expect, and this is the crucial point, that as the backlog of partially processed men is reduced, more men will enter the 1-A pool and the rate of procession through the lottery numbers will be greatly slowed. In April, May, and June, 2-A and 2-8 deferments will lapse as teaching and other occupational deferments end and as men graduate from college, swelling the pool further. As a result of Nixon directive, occupational deferments will no longer be available.

The Pentagon is now moving to speed up the processing of men with numbers below 215. This does not indicate that 215 will be the ceiling for the year. Rather, it reflects a growing recognition (and concern) of the amount of time which clauses between reclassifying a man 1-A and inducting him. Men whose deferments are expiring will have their physicals and personal appearances soon after they become 1-A. Many college seniors are being called for physicals now so that they will be indictable immediately upon graduation. These procedures are being employed to give the Pentagon a better indication of the number of eligible men with which they are working.

The number of men eligible to be drafted-those are not only 1-A but drafted-those who are not only 1-A but have passed physicals and exhausted their appeals-will continue to in crease rapidly through the end of the year, and the Pentagon won't come close to exhausting all the lottery numbers. Those who manage to drag the appeals process into the next year will be placed in the top priority group for induction if their number has been reached this year.

ONE interesting result of the rush to send many men for physicals in a short period of time seems to be that the "flunk-out" rate has increased. Army bases in Boston, Colorado, San Francisco and other cities report a rejection rate greater than fifty percent. Perhaps this is a good time to have a physical.

One reasonable direction for lottery quotas to take (assuming relatively even monthly draft calls with a reduction around November because of the Congressional elections) would be to continue at the present rate of thirty per month, slipping perhaps to twenty or twenty-five in July or August as the pool begins to swell with recent graduates and men who pass physicals. Also, by then, all who graduated in June, 1969, will have exhausted their appeals and be draft able.

As those whose occupational deferments and student deferments lapse, the pool will swell still further. At the present rate, =230 or #240 would be reached by the eighth month, August (draft calls for May are up to ?145). Draft boards are required to return to number one each onth. Under the current system, it is possible that aspreviously deferred men whose numbers have already been reached join the pool, the Pentagon will have to go a much shorter way down the list of numbers to fill its quota-perhaps only as far as =200 in September or later months. Thus. it is mathematically possible that unless more effort is made to process people soon. a higher number will be reached in an early month than in a later one. The critical point is that the current speed of thirty numbers per month will slow up appreciably as the pool grows. Furthermore, there is a chance that the numbers will actually start to regress-reach a high point of 240 or 250 or 260 in August or September, and then not rise above 200 for the rest of the year.

This would raise some interesting legal questions. A number (say 250) might be reached one month and then not reached again this year. Those with number 250 who were draft-able that month would go, while those with deferments. those still appealing their 1-A or those who had not yet taken physicals would not be drafted that month. Assuming the lottery peaks that month and then regresses. not reaching 250 again. some one with 250 not available that month might be exempt from the draft. Or would he? Could the man who was 250 and was drafted file a suit if other 250's who were not in the pool that month, got off?

The selective service law indicates that if your number is called in 1970 while you are 1-A (but undergoing appeals) then you are placed at the top of the 1971 pool. Those still appealing on December 31. 1970. whose numbers have been reached will be taken as soon as their appeals run out. The law also states that anyone who is 1-A and draftable on the last day of the year and whose lottery number is not reached is placed into a second priority pool-composed of men not to be touched until all the lottery numbers have been exhausted the following year. The regulations simply require you to be in the pool at the end of the year to serve your "year of eligibility."

AMBIGUITY arises if your number was reached in September when your appeal was being processed (say your number is 250) but-because of the rapidly growing pool-when you finally enter the pool, say in November or December, the lottery does not reach 250. Are you draft-able because your number has been reached, or are you free because you were draft-able on the last day of the year and your number was not reached? Admittedly this is a somewhat unlikely situation and would affect only a few people, but it raises some interesting legal questions and could create an awful stink.

Another embarrassing situation that speedy processing might alleviate is the case where a local board panics because the men with low lottery numbers are either deferred or not yet processed. To meet their quota for the month, they might be forced to take a man with an extremely high number (say 358). Does this mean that all the men in that board with numbers less than 358 will have to go either this year or next? Surely not.

In spite of their rhetoric that every one would be drafted, many draft boards continued to grant deferments to people for cloudy reasons. It is no coincidence that most of the people with borderline cases who received deferments without much hassle had lottery numbers over 300-numbers which won't be reached this year because the pool is so big. Therefore draft boards weren't giving anything away by granting these people deferments-they are saving them for next year when the pool will be smaller. This is similar to granting deferments to young people under the old system. To prevent men from escaping their claws, they encourage them to take deferments, postponing their entrance into the lottery pool until they have a greater chance of being inducted. By threatening to go through the entire list, they scare men who are probably safe this year into getting "redundant" deferments. Their control has not been reduced to one year. By making irresponsible estimates of manpower needs, they can extend their control indefinitely. This is not to attribute Machiavellian motives to all draft boards-just most.

A competent draft counselor on Long Island recounts a story which illustrates well the attempt of local boards to maintain control. In December, two boys applied for teaching deferments on almost identical grounds. The boy numbered 352 had no trouble getting a deferment. The boy numbered 29 was turned down by the local board. The board was only too willing to defer someone out of reach for this year.

With the premise that draft boards get great satisfaction from the control and channeling of people's lives. I have tried to indicate some reasons why those with high numbers have the good fortune of being in this lottery. They must not panic by seeking unnecessary and nearly impossible deferments if they are to escape the fanatical tentacles of the draft boards.