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"I had eight interviews for jobs," he says. "A vice president from the Hilton chain told me, 'We might take you on as a salad boy until you get drafted.' But they won't put you in any management-trainee program. They won't give you any responsibility because they don't want to train you, then lose you."
But many of the Class of '66 seem to see military service as an excuse for dodging the difficult decision of what to do now that they are grown up. Williams College Senior Douglas H. "Tuna" Stevens, 22, a C-average major in American civilization, will soon become 1A, but it really doesn't matter. "I hadn't thought much about it," says Stevens. "I always figured I'd find something to do—maybe I'd go on to school. By early this year, I decided I wasn't ready for graduate school and I wasn't really interested in teaching. So I'm kinda stuck with the services." In thousands of cases like Tuna Stevens', the military hiatus will actually be a benefit, a chance to grow up and make a realistic appraisal of adulthood.
The Big Stre-t-t-tch. Still, draft ducking—or talking about draft ducking—has become a favorite extracurricular pursuit of the Class of '66. Potential inductees kick around notions of claiming to be afflicted with everything from chronic bedwetting to bad eyes, from homosexuality to bad backs—all exemptible ailments if the doctor believes in them. Men with allergies easily controlled by medication talk about not taking their pills for days before the induction physical. But it is mostly just talk. More comfortable is the notion of stre-t-t-tching a four-year course into five. Or getting married and begetting children fast. Or taking postgraduate jobs in such potentially deferrable fields as teaching, engineering, farming.
But the legal escapes have a way of not working. Richard E. Lerner, 24, who is due this month for a Columbia master's degree in journalism, pondered them thoroughly. Another deferrable year in graduate school? No, because "I don't have the money." Armed-forces reserve units? "They are backed up." The National Guard? A group in Akron, Ohio, would accept him whenever it got an opening—"but I might have to wait around for a year." Critical-occupation jobs? "They're scant in journalism." USIA or the foreign service? "A lot of draft boards aren't deferring for that." Teaching? Without a Ph.D., that means public school, and "That's not really what I want to do." Richard Lerner gave up and prepared himself for an induction notice this month.
No Bullet, Just Pain. For collegians who haven't already gone that route, graduate school seems the best way out. All over the country, grad-school applications are remarkably higher than they were last year. Says W. Donald Cooke, dean of Cornell's Graduate School, which has 8,000 applicants this year, compared to 6,000 in 1965: "I'm sure there are some draft avoiders in there.