The Draft Lottery: Where Were You In 1974?

A discussion in a forum thread about who had what lottery number for their birthday for the Selective Service draft got me to re-check mine. This was sparked by the Ken Burns documentary, "The Viet Nam War" on PBS.

For those in my age group (born in 1954), the draft lottery took place on March 8, 1973 for 1974. Fortunately for us, the Viet Nam War was already over for a year and the lottery was held just in case an emergency occurred and draftees were needed.

Here's the 1974 lottery for those born in 1954:

The Draft Lottery

Above, yours truly on Catalina Island in 1974.

A discussion on the draft in a RV forum I belong to got me to take a look at how I fared with the draft lottery system.

According to the Selective Service website:

LOTTERY TABLE INFORMATION 

Administrative processing number (APN) denotes the highest lottery numbers called for each table year. The APN (highest number) called for a physical was 215 for tables 1970 through 1976.

The last draft call was on December 7, 1972, and the authority to induct expired on June 30, 1973. The date of the last drawing for the lottery was on March 12, 1975. 

Registration with the Selective Service System was suspended on April 1, 1975, and registrant processing was suspended on January 27, 1976.

Registration was resumed in July 1980 for men born in 1960 and later, and is in effect to this present time. Men are required to register within 30 days of their 18th birthday.

For my birth year, 1954, the lottery was held on March 8, 1973 for the 1974 Random Selection Sequence. But the Viet Nam war ended two months prior.

Even if the United States were still involved in Viet Nam, I wasn't worried about being called up for service since my lottery number was 150 for my birthdate.

Somewhere around here, I still have my draft registration papers.