THE TEST THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

The Test That Changed My Life

Feb.  July 7^th = 50.  After applying the principles of interpolation that I had learned in statistics, I figured that the number 50 would probably mean that I would be called up in the first draft lottery in February, 1970, plus or minus three days with a confidence level of 92%.

It was the Fall of 1969 and the fall of my dreams as it was the first year of the military draft lottery.  The need to draft young people to fight in Viet Nam had become so great that the draft boards, in an effort to appear impartial, had randomly picked calendar dates for the year and assigned them sequential numbers.  These dates represented the birth dates of draftees and would let young people know when during the year they could expect their number to be up.  July 7^th, my birthday, was assigned the sequential number 50 and so I figured I would be drafted around the last week in February.

I was going to college in Ohio that Fall and I received word from my local draft board in Jacksonville, Florida to come in for the dreaded draft physical.  I tested the system by submitting a request to have my physical in Ohio since that was where I was attending school and I no longer had any family or other reason to go to Florida.  Their approval gave me a one month’s reprieve for the physical.

I immediately dropped out of school and with no money, I got a ride with a student to Chicago where I had a friend.  I stayed with him while I went to as many draft counseling centers as I could to try to come up with a way to fail my physical.  But I was told that at least 80% of the inductees wanted to fail and unless I had reams of medical reports indicating a long history of a very serious problem, the best way to beat the draft was to flee to Canada.

At the end of my reprieve, I hitchhiked from Chicago to southern Ohio just in time for the physical.  On the selected day, I met a group of other boys assigned the same fate and we traded stories in the bus on our way to the center in Cincinnati.  One boy had been on speed for 14 days straight with minimal sleep hoping that his blood pressure would keep him from being drafted.  Another told of how he would climb on top of his dresser, barefoot, and jump down.  He would do this over and over again hoping that his fallen arches would mean that he couldn’t do the necessary marching and so he would fail.  And I remembered hearing the stories while in Chicago of boys who would get a revolver and literally shoot themselves in their foot.  The bus ride was filled with the nervous laughter of boys describing not only their quiet but also unquiet acts of desperation.

After assembling in the main hall, I was surprised to hear my name called out along with three other names to go into a side room.  I was even more surprised when I saw these other three carrying duffel bags.  And I panicked as I listened to an officer snap the instructions of boarding a bus to go to boot camp in South Carolina.  After telling them that there must have been some mistake as I was there for my physical, not to go to boot camp, they checked their papers and agreed.  By this time, all of the others who were there for their physical had already gone through the first of several exam stations.  So I went to the first station alone, and filled out the form regarding medical history.  While filling out the form, I checked off ear problems, knee problems, and ankle problems – all with no supporting documents.

I then rushed through another station and caught up with the rest so I was last in line.  We went through the motions of turning our head and coughing even though the examiner was already three boys down the line by the time we coughed.  The swiftness of the examiner as we “bent and spread” convinced me of the superficiality of the entire examination process and so I started planning my escape to Canada while in the line waiting for the hearing test.

The hearing test consisted of sitting in a soundproof room with five others, putting on a set of earphones, and then turning a dial to the left if we didn’t hear the tone, and to the right if we did hear the tone.  Of course they knew that everyone would want to claim that they couldn’t hear the tone so they advised/warned us that the different tones were set in such a way that they could determine if a person could consistently not hear a tone or if they were faking it.  Also, anyone who failed the test once was required to take the test a second time which would insure consistency of one’s responses or dire consequences if the tests were inconsistent.

Being the last person in line, I wound up entering the room by myself while the rest of the line had progressed to the next station.  I put the earphones on and although I’ll admit to being rather liberal in my turns to the left, I wasn’t radical.  The day before the exam, I had developed a boil in my right ear but it hadn’t affected my normal hearing very much.  But evidently when the earphones were on, they pressed my ear against this boil so that I honestly couldn’t hear the tones I was supposed to hear.  After looking at my results, and evidently looking at its consistency, and realizing that I was already one station behind everyone else, they indicated I had failed it and didn’t make me take it over again.

Finally, at the last station, an examiner saw that I had checked off ear problems on my medical history and saw that I had royally and gloriously failed the hearing exam.  He then looked in my ear, saw the boil, and evidently didn’t like what he saw.  I was never so glad to hear that I had failed a test as I was that day.  It was enough to make me wish that I believed in a god that I could thank.

That night, my girlfriend and I took the last $18.00 we had together and went out for dinner to celebrate.  We celebrated by setting our wedding date to be February 7^th, 1970.