[deputy]

Not trying to pick a fight, but you must be too young to know that the draft lottery didn't start until 1969, when Biden would have been 27. He'd have turned 18 at the very end of 1960 as I did and would have been draft eligible all through the 60’s. Roughly 100,000 were drafted in the years 1960-1964, but the next 5 years saw that number range between 228,000 and almost 400,000. The first lottery was in December 1969 and was only held for three years following that and the draft ended altogether in 1973.

[Kirkwood]

You are partially correct. The lottery was retroactive to be inclusive of a larger pool of men than only those of a single year. I rechecked Biden’s birthdate and he was born in Nov ‘42 but the lottery only included birthdates from Jan ‘44 and forward. I thought Biden was born in 44, but I was off by about 14 months. So he got past the first go around on the original medical deferrment alone and the lottery had no effect on him.