30th anniversary of draft lottery

ec. 1 is a day for the record books. On this day in 1881, brothers Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt Earp were exonerated in court for their involvement in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Today also marks the 44th anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of a public bus in the deep South.

Closer to campus, 30 years ago this evening, millions of Americans huddled around their TV sets as the first draft lottery since 1924 got under way. Like every other baby boomer my Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers and I knew at the time, we watched as the first ping-pong ball float into view. Within minutes, the relative peace we enjoyed as USC students shattered before our very eyes.

Everything about that dreadful night was surreal. After all, wasn't this the evening every able-bodied young man, born between 1946 and 1950, was to learn his fate as a continuing college student, national guardsman, expatriate or worse - a grunt on his way to Vietnam? All due to the roll of a damned ping-pong ball, no less.

If your date of birth was among the last 200 or so selected, then you were on Easy Street. About the only way you were going to be drafted was if the president himself knocked on your door. But if your birth date was among the first 150 selected, as mine was, you all but saw your life flash in front of you. I ought to know. I "won" the draft lottery that evening. Sept. 14 was the first ping-pong ball down the chute!

Watching the sun come up the next morning from 28th Street, I couldn't help but think about the other earth-shattering events my generation had witnessed on the airwaves. From the launch of Sputnik to President Kennedy's funeral to the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show to Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon, television had always brought us together. Now, it was tearing us apart. By 1969, TV was driving home, night after deadly night, the unspeakable images of war into our living rooms - fracturing the nation's psyche to this day.

Even though every commander-in-chief in the last three decades has sent soldiers into battle, something continues to gnaw at our innards. As baby boomers once on the verge of adulthood, the idea of fighting in Vietnam seemed as hideous as turning 30. Today, as middle-aged parents, the notion of our children serving in the military seems almost honorable, if that is possible in this day and age. But way too much has been written about baby boomers. Throughout the years, my generation has been the subject of books, plays, movies, music and more.

Today, even Wall Street - once the sight of several ugly anti-war protests - courts us. Now that we collectively stand on the verge of inheriting the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever known, investment gurus have us on their radar. Could anything be more ironic?

On the other hand, we were the generation of peace and love, out to change the world forever. On the other hand, we have become the spitting image of Richard Nixon's "silent majority." How else do you explain our silence about the outrageous rise of youth violence, the unconscionable fleecing of senior citizens or the constant poisoning of our shorelines? It's difficult to believe that we boomers, once so full of promise, have become more interested in winning the weekly lottery than winning the fight against AIDS, teen pregnancy or illiteracy.

Maybe that fateful night 30 years ago took more out of us than we ever could have imagined. Maybe it didn't. I really don't know. What is clear to me is this: the Earp brothers and Rosa Parks knew what it meant to fight the good fight on Dec. 1. I wonder if my bros, with whom I watched the draft lottery back in 1969, feel the same way I do today.Šthat it's time to honor our generation's credo.Šit's time to enlist in the war on drugs, poverty, injustice and cruelty. In a sense, isn't this what we were supposed to be fighting for in Vietnam?

Maybe it's time for another version of the draft lottery. Only this time around, let's make everyone a "winner."

Denny Freidenrich
Class of 1970

Copyright 1999 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 138, No. 61 (Wednesday, December 1, 1999), beginning on page 5 and ending on page 6.