Talk:Vietnam War draft

Relevance to the Vietnam War
This article seem very underexplanatory. There is no mention of the war which prompted the lottery. No mention of the politics surrounding this lottery. This may not be the appropriate article to explain these topics, but these topics are also absent from Vietnam War AND The United States and the Vietnam War.

I don't understand the significance of the scatterplot, this needs to be explained more clearly. As well, the overall article doesn't flow too well and smacks of something copied & pasted from somewhere else... 69.157.105.230 22:25, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What days of the year were picked as a matter of interest?

++++

There was an issue with the lack of randomness of this lottery; later dates in the year tended to get lower numbers. I suspect the scatterplot is related to this, although I can barely read it.

I'm wondering about the basis for the phrase "Conscription ended in 2004." I was under the impression that it ended in 1973, although none were even taken that year.

I don't want to edit the original because I may be missing something.

Mike Jobu 12:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

conscription did indeed end in '73.
bush-bashing at work. he may be an idiot but I'm sick of people defacing Vietnam articles in order to abuse him... I've reverted the article. the last couple edits have also changed what the first date drawn was... going to try and do some research and see if I can find the right date. Tmorrisey 23:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't recall the source, but
I've read that the draft lottery was fairly successful in deflating the war protest movements. The lottery system that began in 1969 changed the drafting system sharply from the way it was previously conducted. Through the mid-to-late 1960s, many men in their late teens right up through their 20s made every life decision (staying in college, going on to grad school, getting married etc.) with careful consideration as to how that decision might effect their draft status. They no doubt felt a lot of anxiety and resentment for years. That led some to be anti-war activists and turned many others strongly against the White House. The 1969 lottery covered all registrants born from 1/1/44 through 12/31/50. Guys who for years had the draft hanging over their heads now learned fairly quickly whether they would be called up or not. Those with high numbers could finally begin going about life normally. In the lotteries of the following years, young guys still in their teens learned their fate much more quickly than was the case in the 60s. So it seems to me that the author of this article, who comes at the issue as a statistician and finds that the lottery wasn't successful because it wasn't purely random, has missed how the lottery was a big improvement as a means for selecting draftees, both from the point of view of the White House and also that of eligible males and their families. Bailiff50 00:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bailiff50 (talk • contribs)


 * It would be great to incorporate that into the article, if a reliable source could be found for it. —Dominus (talk) 13:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * the draft lottery was fairly successful in deflating the war protest movements.
 * This recollection is plausible so it should not be archived out of site and it should be incorporated if a reliable source can be found (I agree with Dominus). In rewriting the article today (below, "clarify and smooth") I have sharpened its mistakes. I have flagged "verify source" and "citation needed" at two points where this plausible recollection disputes a fact in the article. --P64 (talk) 18:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Not sure where to put this comment, but the lottery did not necessarily apply to all members of this cohort. I had a lottery number high enough that I wouldn't have been drafted, however I had been already declared 1A, and even though I was in the process of (unsuccessfully) appealing this on medical grounds, was deemed not subject to the lottery. Wschart (talk) 12:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Leap Year Birthdays
I'm certain that people born on February 29 didn't know what to think of this. Had their number been drawn, it might have resulted in a serious population decrease for those with that birthday. Captain Jackson 04:51, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

It was 366 days
If I come back here and see someone has changed it to "The days of the year, from 1 to 365, were written on slips of paper and the slips were placed in plastic capsules" I will have this article blocked from being edited by new & non-registered users. —06:15, 29 May 2006 Dexter111344
 * Now I have signed the original and deleted the trash talk from this section. --P64 (talk) 17:17, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Results
Would a chart of the results of the Draft be encyclopedic? There's one on this site http://www.sss.gov/lotter1.htm. I wouldn't be able to do it myself, but I'm sure someone could.--Richy 21:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Which is incorrect?
The first number drawn was 258 (September 14). The highest draft ... was number 195 (September 24).

Day 195 certainly isn't September 24. Which is incorrect, 195 or September 24? --Lucent 22:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It appears that this section is confusing. What it means is that they only picked 195 of the 366 possible days that year. So the first pick was day number 258, which is September 14, and the last pick was pick number 195, and they drew day number 268, which is September 24. This table of lottery results makes this clear. -- Dominus (talk) 12:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * That's not quite right. The table actually shows that a number was drawn for every bithdate, including Leap Day. The text says: The highest lottery number called for this group was 195; all men assigned that lottery number or any lower number, and who were classified 1-A or 1-A-O (available for military service), were called to report for possible induction. So, 195 was not the highest number called out during the draw and assigned to a birthday, it was the highest number assigned during the first draw whose holders became eligible for induction. Almost all of us at 195 or lower who were 1-A got orders to report for a physical during 1970.--Hjal (talk) 17:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification. I think I got it right when I edited that part of the article last week. -- Dominus (talk) 18:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

it still makes no sense:
 * The first day number drawn was 257 (14 September), so all registrants with that birthday were assigned lottery number 1. Men of draft age (those born between 1944 and 1950) whose birthday fell on the corresponding day of the year would all be drafted at the same time. The highest draft number called from the 1969 lottery was number 195 (24 September).

The first number was 257 (14th Sep). The highest number was 195 (24th Sep). This is either incorrect or very poorly explained. it needs the attention of an expert as it is misleading at present. --Brideshead (talk) 12:12, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

The first day number was 257; this was draft number 1. The highest draft number called for service was 195. —Dominus (talk) 06:55, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It should probably refer to first through the final, or last called to service, to be clear. MMetro (talk) 00:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I just rewrote it again. Maybe this version is clearer. —Dominus (talk) 03:45, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


 * WHICH IS INCORRECT?
 * First, 258 or 257? In other words, Leap Year Day = day number 60 or number 366? The article now says 257 (which implies Leap Year Day = 366).
 * Second, http://www.sss.gov/lotter1.htm says that draft numbers up to 215 were called for physical exams, 1970 to 1976. While rewriting primarily to "clarify and smooth" (see below), I have used a few times the words "called to serve". This article once says that some draft evaders simply did not report for the test. I guess that is the physical exam, which covered more than the men called to serve (according to sss.gov) --up to draft# 215 rather than #195 from the 1969 drawing, for example. I have barely touched this ambiguity, regarding the 1972 to 1975 lotteries only. --P64 (talk) 19:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Lottery start date.
December 1969 may have been the first ever lottery conducted at the national level. But I contend that draft lotteries were in use to some extent in 1968 if not also 1967. One way I can see this happening is if local draft boards got the ball rolling and the process then went national with the signing of a bill making it a requirement. Apart from my own recollections, I've seen two other references to pre-1969 lottery activity. I will be doing some searches for corroboration on this. - Srobidoux (talk) 08:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I am quite certain that if there was a lottery he1d in December of 1969 for the year 1970, it was the 4th lottery. I was in the third lottery, and I turned 18 in 1969 my number was 348, the first 2 years of the lottery my numbers were much lower. the first time was 26, the second I think was 140 something. I believe the lottery each year was for those turning 18 in that year, but I know you were required to register the year you turned 18. Article is definitely wrong in some of the statements. Wsd321 (talk) 01:44, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

User Comment: To the best of my recollection, I don't think some of the lottery timings and chronolgies are accurate. I entered college as a freshman at Age 17 in September, 1969. At that time, I am sure the college deferment was in effect. I turned 18 in early 1970. Perhaps April or thereabouts after my birthday, I watched a lottery on a television at the student center in which the draft number for my birthday was drawn. My number came up roughly 325, and I had very little concern my number would be called. I later remember hearing or reading that the actual draft call for my lottery only reached number 75. Kfinel (talk) 08:55, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Perception of insufficient "randomness"
There should some sort of rebuttal to the notion that the displayed result was not "random" enough. Such as, it is not possible to meaningful decide if a process is random enough based on a single result; and that humans are lousy judges of randomness, deeming a result of a random shuffle such as "2143" as "more random" than "4321", even though both have the same probability of occurring. Perhaps someone with a better knowledge of probability and statistics can jump in here... Pimlottc (talk) 04:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * While rewriting primarily to "clarify and smooth" (below), I have reversed the direction of the purported bias for December birthdates. The article now matches the plot and its caption, which show and report too few December dates with high lottery numbers (later induction).
 * We should add a horizontal line to the plot at 195 or 195-1/2. We should mark the point at horizontal 257 or 258, vertical 1, with distinct shape or color or size. --P64 (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * To my eye it looks like we have 51 of 65 November/December birthdays in the bottom half of the scatterplot, representing the first half of the queue; only 14 of 65 in the top half of the plot and second half of the queue. Treating that count as Binomial(65, 1/2), the two-tail probability is about 1 in 100,000. If the count is actually 16 of 65 in the top half, that probability is still less than 1 in 10,000 (0.0001). Even at count 18 of 65 it's less than 1 in 2000 (0.0005).
 * Interpretation depends on adjustment for multiple hypotheses. Briefly, why focus on November/December rather than another two months? (Or why on December as the scatterplot caption does?) It may be helpful to read a longer description of the procedure using capsules, shoebox, and jar. To me the brief quotation in the article suggests a monotonic bias from January to December. --P64 (talk) 20:21, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Number of inductees in 1968
The author is confusing (a) number of draft inductees in 1968 with (b) the number of U.S. military stationed in Vietnam. The citation given in no way supports the assertion that 568,100 American men were drafted in 1968. You will find that 296,406 is the correct figure for inductees in 1968.

clarify and smooth
I have revised all three main sections to clarify and smooth what they say, without further research. This sharpens any points where the previous authors may be wrong, and I have flagged two with "citation needed". At those two points the authors say that the draft lottery strengthened the anti-war movement or the anti-war resentment. (I interpreted their "turn for the worst" as the movement strengthening.) --P64 (talk) 18:45, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This is getting a little more complicated. Now I have added to three other sections of this talk page: "Relevance to Vietnam war", "which is incorrect?", and "Perception of insufficient 'randomness'".
 * I have also added a few in-line links to pages at Selective Service System: History and Records. I see how to add numbered Notes but this source is already both the third Reference and the first External Link. Probably wiki software can unify this somehow, rather than repetitively give the same source in Notes, References, and External Links. --P64 (talk) 20:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Unless I'm wrong, there's a big error...
I'm having trouble reconciling two different parts of this article that seem to contradict each other.

The article says "People soon noticed that the lottery numbers were not distributed uniformly over the year. In particular, December birthdates generally had higher draft numbers representing later calls to serve (see figure)."

However the caption of the scatter plot says otherwise...

"1969 draft lottery scatterplot. A scatterplot of the days of the year (horizontal axis) and their ranks (vertical axis) shows a noticeable absence of days in December with high ranks (later induction)."

-- Looking at the scatter plot I think the article is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.58.78.136 (talk) 15:31, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Someone corrected that months ago. (Spring 2010, I think I mixed up something regarding up:down low:high and early:late, in the course of rewriting to make the point clear. So it was clear and wrong for a while. Now it should be clear and right.)
 * Today I expanded the image size for clarity; revised its caption and the text for clarity. I hope that helps.--P64 (talk) 19:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Who Is Starr?
The first two "bulleted" references under the subheading "References" are just references akin to "Further Reading" rather than a specific list of in-line references. In any event, the first one of these lists a reference with an editorial comment to the effect of "called by Starr the' best and most comprehensive' article on the topic". This is the first reference to the person, Starr, in the article. Which one? Ringo Starr? Not impossible, but certainly implausible.

In any event, it needs to be fixed. It needs to be cleaned up. The introduction of the last name of the person should always include a first name. After that you can refer to him by the last name. Anybody knows this. I assume that the reference is to one Norton Star. But I don't know for sure. So I did not just insert Norton. I inserted Ringo in the hopes that somebody, such as the owner of the article and the person who reverted my "correction," would correct this glaring error. As usual, I was disappointed by the response by the Wikipedia article owner. It can be hard to be a responsible Wikipedia contributor. Much easier to be a semi--responsible get things done quicker person.

So I will try the correct way with this "Talk" contribution. I expected it to go nowhere. Da5id403 (talk) 21:39, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

PS: I am logged in. Why doesn't Wikipedia automatically add my name? What is with the tildes?


 * I imagine it is Norton Starr author of ref #2. But it is unnecessary and I deleted it.  Pinethicket (talk) 22:06, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Trouble finding the article
I had trouble finding this article. I searched for "Vietnam War Draft," and it did not come up as a suggested link. I looked at "draft dodgers," and a few other articles before I found this link in the footnotes to the Vietnam War article.

It needs to have a more visible presence, and "Vietnam" should probably be in the title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.70.220.6 (talk) 21:31, 27 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I have done this: Vietnam War draft. Thanks for the suggestion. —Mark Dominus (talk) 04:02, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Weird leap year claim
I've removed "Additionally, the inclusion of a slip for February 29 made that date grossly over-represented, given that some of the birth years of prospective inductees were common years. However, the non-uniform lottery was allowed to stand." I don't see it in source 3 or 4 and it doesn't make sense to me. February 29 had a rank of 285, so they weren't overrepresented in the draft, I assume. And the existence of a "full" slip for the date doesn't affect the rank of anyone else vs. anyone else. So I think someone just didn't think through what they were saying here. (note: I found this as a question at, but alas, they don't provide an answer for me to cite. Wnt (talk) 20:47, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

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