The picture would be less grim were there truth in the frequently made statement that we are the best-fed nation in the world. The falsity of this statement is shown by the fact that seven men must now be drafted to obtain two physically and mentally fit for service; and that, although the standards of fitness have been greatly reduced with each war, the number of unfit has steadily increased... --Adelle Davis,   in Let's Cook It Right

CONVERSATION OVER SUPPER at North House had taken a nostalgic turn, when someone said, "Remember the draft?" Wrinkled, sweat-darkened draft cards emerged from our wallets. We read the baleful warnings on the back: Five years or $10,000 fine for failing to have it in your possession; the same penalty for lending it to another to use as identification. Next the topic turned to lottery numbers: who had gotten number 12, who 364. Suddenly I realized that most of the men present were not participating. They were too young, a "different generation," and had never known or feared the draft.

It is just over five years since the last unwilling conscripts joined the army. And it may not be much more than five years until the draft comes back, judging from the unexpectedly high cost and questionable military ardor of the all-volunteer army. Not so long ago, leaves of absence were avoided, psychiatrists consulted, cooler climes visited, and careers inconveniently interrupted because of the draft. The draft, now so easily forgotten, was then a compelling and ominous presence in our midst.

In December of 1972 I talked with two young men who were to share the distinction, as it turned out, of being among the very last Americans to beat the draft. The story of these men--call them Larry and David--is not the whole picture by any means, but merely an episode that may give the flavor of college life in an era when the worst pressures were typically not from exams.

A sophomore at a small alternative college in Oregon, Larry was tall, bearded, and thin. Like a more famous Oregonian, Bill Walton, he often wore a wool cap, flannel shirt, and blue jeans--lumberjack garb. Nineteen-year old Larry had just had his draft physical the week before I met him.

"They weighed me and measured my height," he said. "The doctor wrote it down and called the next guy. I had to tell him. 'Wait a minute. I'm underweight?'"

At six feet, one and a half inches, and 130 pounds, Larry was five pounds under the minimum weight requirement for his height. The army couldn't take him. He was free.

Larry usually weighed 145, but two weeks before the physical he began fasting. During that time he ate nothing but one or two large cans of V-8 juice. As if starving himself wasn't enough, he also ran several miles a day. "I needed the exercise. I had to lose those calories, man." The thought of varying his diet of water and fruit juice did occur to him, but calories scared him off. "Maybe I could have eaten soybeans, they're practically all protein. But even protein has calories." While other dieters counted 2000 calories a day, he counted 20.

A major setback came when Larry's first physical was postponed a month. "I had a date in November and I was down to 132 for it. When I found out that they had changed the date, I gained all my weight back in a week." Larry wasn't sure whether he could go through his rigorous diet again, but he did.

"They're calling me back in six months to check my weight. So two weeks before the date, I stop eating. I don't mind. Hell, I fast each Wednesday now just for the sake of doing it. For the discipline."

"You know, the last few days of the fast I was delirious at times. Really raving. I saw things that weren't there, the whole bit. I lost my grasp on things, you could say."

"Did that scare you?" I asked Larry.

"No, not really."

The same night that I met Larry I was introduced to Dave. Dave was also a sophomore. By coincidence they had the same birthday and consequently the same lottery number. But while Larry escaped by fasting, Dave literally ate his way out of the draft.

A month before his physical, Dave started to stuff himself. He ate constantly, with a preference for greasy, fatty food. "It's not hard to get a lot of grease if you eat at the school cafeteria," he said. He also drank large quantities of beer.

Overindulgence on this scale proved unpleasant. "Actually, greasy food gives me indigestion. But which is worse, a little gas or two years in the army?" Dave said to me. In one month of gluttony--during which Dave commonly ate four and five meals a day--he added 25 pounds of fat. He took on the appearance of an overfed courtier, a modern-day George III, with his long curly black hair hanging on each side of a puffy, red-cheeked face. The real change, however, was going on inside him.

Normal blood pressure, he figured, ranges from 120 to 140. Young people most frequently fall in the bottom half of this range. But Dave had a history of high blood pressure, and his diet had made it worse. "The day before the physical, my blood pressure was 160. Then, just before I went, I took a No-Doz tablet to make them think I was dying." The draft board held Dave for 24 hours, a drug-detection measure he hadn't anticipated; but fortunately for him, his blood pressure remained high.

Like Larry, Dave was scheduled for another check-up in six months. Assuming he flunked that second physical, he would be free. His 4-F status would stand regardless of later improvements in his health.

THE EXPLOITS of Larry and Dave have a comical tone, as if the draft were a game for college kids to play, a challenge, like climbing up Mem Hall to hang jack o'lanterns on Halloween. In fact, the draft was not such a serious business in 1972, an election year, when the number of inducted dropped from 96,000 to 50,000, and most of those who were drafted never saw Viet Nam. But in the years before, the Army's famous "greetings" announcement changed a lot of lives, even in the sheltered middle class.

I can remember my own trip to Draft Board Number 10 in Mount Vernon, New York, to register in 1972. I checked the conscientious objector slot with a mixture of pride and trepidation. Though the preliminary form committed me to nothing, I felt as if I had sealed my fate. Because I was born a Quaker, my religion provided an unusual advantage for getting approval for C.O. status. On the other hand, my draft board had a great deal of trouble filling its quota, and did not look kindly on conscientious objectors as a result.

If the board had denied my request, my family would have aimed me for Canada, I'm sure. But I had been thinking that Canada was too ambiguous an option to be a real protest. If I went to jail for my convictions there would be less ambiguity. And my reading that year was full of precedents: Thoreau, Eugene Debs, Daniel Berrigan, even George Fox, the first Quaker. I can't say now what I would have done, but I know my sympathies were with the resisters in American prisons. If it didn't stop the war, it would sure be one way to get some reading done.

Fortunately for the world and me, American troops were being pulled out of Viet Nam. I never had to test my own alternative, the way Larry and Dave did, and see if I could stick it out in my way as well as they did in theirs.

What I've learned of the world since then has not been kind to my early pacifist beliefs. If asked again to fight in a war like Vietnam, I could not so readily request C.O. status. Perhaps the only answer is to hope one never has to face such a choice. And that seems almost no answer at all. --Adam W. Glass