Nice piece about the necessary service that preserves the US. I too was draft eligible for Viet Nam and had a lottery number of about the same as yours in 150000 person city ( Winston Salem NC). I was encouraged to join ROTC but as you said , not a popular thing to do so stayed out. My Dad served during WW2 in N Africa and Italy as a dentist and felt very proud to be fighting for US . He was in Reserve Corps for 20 years , served in VA then private practice. We had a lot of parallels !