Several hundred thousand evaded it altogether, and draft card burnings occurred nationwide.
The system was finally abolished in 1973, with registration ending in 1975.
Fictional footage too:Apocalypse Nowhad been released the year before.
President Carter at the annual National Education Association convention in Los Angeles in 1980.Diana Walker/Getty Images
The thought of protecting the country where I lived was one thing.
But someone was about to hand me a gun?
For a war that didnt exist, at least not yet?
And with the Soviet Union?
None of it seemed to make any sense, especially to an immature brain.
I debated whether to sign up or not.
(An older cousin had done just that, so that prospect wasnt outside the realm of possibility.)
I took home a few pamphlets, but I still didnt know what to do next.
The hallowed romanticism of the Sixties vanished immediately.
Matters werent any less stressful at home.
(These were the early days of computers, but I didnt own one yet.)
The task was both benign and utterly terrifying.
(The prosecutor, by the way: Robert Mueller.)
Meanwhile, Proclamation 4771, the law Carter signed back in 1980, remains in effect.
