14  How I got to the Kalahari & thereby avoided the draft

In the middle of my second year at UT, I walked into Eric Pianka’s office to chat. Eric’s thesis work was on the species diversity of North American desert lizards and his postdoc studies were on Australian ones.

I asked, “What’s your next big desert?” Eric responded that he had received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the species diversity of lizards in the Kalahari. However, he was now an Assistant Professor with teaching obligations, and Karen, his wife, was pregnant. So, he couldn’t spend a year in the field and was having trouble finding someone qualified to do the field work.

I said, “Look no further, I’ll do it.” Eric was surprised and said that he would have asked me but believed that I was about to be drafted (which did appear inevitable).

I said we should at least try petitioning the Draft Board for permission. I noted that whenever I tried to do something ‘normal’ (like be a student), the Draft Board was resistant. But if I wanted to do something unusual, they granted permission.

We agreed to send a letter to the Draft Board, requesting an Occupational Deferment so I could spend a year studying the ecology of the Kalahari Desert. I insisted on writing the letter myself, as my life was on the line. But text of that letter is better written than I could have done at the time. If I did draft it, Eric must have edited it with a heavy pen (he was a superb editor).

Sometime that spring, I phoned the Draft Board to find out their decision. The liaison officer said they wanted to give me an Occupational Deferment (Class II-A) but couldn’t because they were no longer granting these deferments. Instead they were giving me a Student Deferment (Class I-S) for six-months, even though I wouldn’t be a student. She then explained that they would subsequently extend my Student Deferment for another six months, enabling me to finish the year-long project. I was delighted, as my trip was not possible possible. I was relieved, as I was safe from the Draft, at least for one more year.

Larry Coons – a friend from UT Austin – wanted to join me. Larry had a medical deferment and was free to travel. Fortunately, Eric was able to obtain a small grant from the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (in exchange for our specimens). This grant funded Larry’s expenses. Had that grant not come through, I would have been alone for a very long time.

Larry and I flew to Africa in late August 1969. We were excited by the opportunity to do fieldwork in Africa. We were together until June 1970, when Larry returned to the States. We were a good team.

We were, however, young and inexperienced. I was almost 25 years old, and Larry was a year younger. We were responsible for setting up the field study, as Eric had to teach in the fall semester. He was able to join us in mid-January 1970 for two months. But Larry and I would select study sites and start collecting lizards and data.

We flew to Johannesburg, South Africa in early September. We spent the first night sleeping on pool tables in the basement of the YMCA (no room was available). Unfortunately, we couldn’t start fieldwork until late November as the Land Rover I’d ordered from England arrived in Cape Town over two months late. Larry and I spend most of those months waiting impatiently in Cape Town. When the Land Rover (“Molly”) finally arrived, we were more than ready for the field. We headed north to Upington, a frontier town on the southern edge of the Kalahari, picked up supplies and headed into the desert itself (Chapter 16).

But within days of our arrival in the Kalahari, the Selective Service System instituted a lottery, replacing the “draft the oldest man first” protocol. My birthday (14 September) was Number 1 in the lottery! This was the first lottery I’d ever “won.” This was a win I could do without.

I learned about the lottery in mid-December, when Larry and I were back in Upington for supplies and read about the new lottery in Time and in Newsweek. I was stunned by my lottery number but was confident I was safe. I had permission to be out of the country, meaning I would have six months to appeal any attempt to draft me once my current Deferment expired. By then, I’d be close to 26, when men were no longer “eligible” for the draft. Larry and I promptly headed to the bar at the ‘Oranje Hotel’ for celebratory ice-cold beers.

On the next trip to Upington, I found a letter from my Mom. I didn’t save the letter, but I’ll never forget her opening words:

“Dear Ray, I’ve always encouraged you to do your best, to come out on top, to be number one. But this is carrying things too far.”

I never thought of my Mom as having a sense of humor, but I treasure her comment in that letter.

I never was drafted. I never heard from the Draft Board again, despite my top lottery number. I was lucky. Many were not.