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Old Reliable. Gary played trumpet and football in high school, attended the University of Redlands for two years. Then on to neat-but-ivyless Cal State at Los Angeles, a state-financed, tuition-free college with an enrollment of 20,000 students, the bulk of whom are Los Angeles commuters (the San Bernardino Freeway slashes along the edge of the campus). Described by both his parents as "a real plugger," Gary Wilson has earned a rock-solid B average and the nickname "Old Reliable Wilson" for his industrious work as president and treasurer of Theta Chi fraternity and member of the Cal State interfraternity council, the college student disciplinary board and the Blue Key honorary society. Last week he was elected one of the school's top five all-round seniors.
For his college wherewithal, he has worked both part time and full time as an oilfield roustabout and, lately, as an assistant engineer for the Standard Oil Co. He has done well; Standard wants him to come to work permanently after graduation. He has steadily dated pert auburn-haired Sandra Sue Harper, 21, a Cal State classmate, long enough so that they admit to being "serious."
The draft casts both job and marriage into limbo. As Sandy Harper poutishly puts it: "There's just no use planning for the future. There isn't any future until we find out what's happening with the draft. I guess we'll just wait and see." Standard Oil can do no more.
SS-49342561. The draft became very real to Gary Wilson last fall after he took a pre-induction physical and was declared a healthy, if fretful, 1A. Like just about every other college student in America, he applied to his draft board in San Gabriel for a 25 classification—the occupational deferment normally granted full-time U.S. students. But the 1A wheels turned faster than the 25; his number (SS-49342561) came up at Christmas, and so did his "Greeting."
"I didn't object to the draft itself," he says. "I expected to be called eventually, but for me the timing was all wrong." During his first angry visit to the draft board, Gary was told to come back with another letter from Cal State testifying to his student status. He did. His induction was postponed, but only until Feb. 1. Grimly, Gary Wilson began a patient—and unrewarding—series of visits to the draft board office. "I'd go down there, wait three hours to see someone," he said, "and I'd get nowhere. I was getting the brushoff."
Trauma. Desperate, he sat down on Jan. 22 and composed a cautiously worded letter to the President of the United States. He laid out the facts of his case, explaining that he had had to work to make expenses and was unable to finish college in the standard, approved four years. He concluded the letter to L.B.J. by summing up the plight of the Class of '66: