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The year Edwards became eligible for the draft, the military drafted 49,514 men, according to Selective Service records - tapping draftees who had lottery numbers as high as 95.
I'm having a hard time parsing this... Isn't the article's author contradicting himself by claiming that in 1972, people with lottery numbers within the range of 1 to 95 were drafted, and Edwards had a number of 178, but more than half of the people drafted had numbers higher than that? Something doesn't compute...
A high lottery number? Not exactly. Pulling number 178 in the February 1972 Selective Service lottery drawing, Edwards' number was lower than more than half of those picked.
This is a bunch of BS and a pretty stupid statement! I had number 27 in 1972 and my memory was that they got to number 19 that year (will be glad to be corrected on this) I remember only being slightly worried about being drafted. If I was drafted, I would have gone. What I am starting to see through hindsight is that I was being lied to by people like John Kerry. In hindsite I wish I had gone, would have done me some good.
I noticed that also. Clearly, the author is getting numbers mixed up. Nobody with a draft number higher than 178 was drafted in Feb 1972 and certainly not "more than half." The highest number in the previous draft was 95. This is a moot point anyway, since nobody drafted in Feb. 1972 was ever called up.
No, none of those drafted had higher numbers. The author's just saying that Edwards' lottery number wasn't all that high.
Over half of the total number of people in the lottery had numbers higher than he did. Half of the 366 birthdays in a year puts the midpoint at 183. He was slightly below that at 178.
All of the people actually drafted had numbers lower than he did (1 - 95) but Edwards wasn't all that safe if more people had been needed that year.