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	Podcast:		Other News
	Episode:		This man's Vietnam War-era battles were with the draft board
	Category:		Government & Organizations
	Duration:		00:09:50
	Publish Date:		2019-05-25 12:07:04
	Description:		In the mid-1960s, there was a number that loomed large for many American men: 26. That was the cutoff age for the draft. If you were antiwar, or just didn’t fancy going off to combat, it could be a race to stall the process long enough to hit that birthday, before being hauled in front of the draft board. Fred Lonidier was very much antiwar . He was a student in San Francisco during this period , and he realized at some point that graduation was coming. Without a plan, he was sure to be drafted. So he went with a sure way out: the Peace Corps. He alerted his local draft board in California that he’d be needing a deferment. In answer, he received a new draft card in the mail that said “1A.” “That put you into the immediate draftable pool,” Lonidier said. “So they were just basically sending a shot across my bow that when I graduated I would be drafted very quickly.” Lonidier would appeal that decision, only to receive the same answer from the state, and eventually from the office of the
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