Having read most of this thread, I think the driving force behind Rudy's deferment was his employer, the judiciary. They didn't want to lose a legal star, either for a few years or forever. Rudy as a lawyer was one in a million. It was better for the country that he stayed at work and they knew it. Rudy's subsequent career validates that decision.
About how many Presidents could you have said that at age 23?
Having read most of this thread, I think the driving force behind Rudy's deferment was his employer..... A draft deferment kept Giuliani out of Vietnam while he attended law school. He was granted a 2-A occupational deferment for his job as a law clerk in 1969 after his boss, the late Manhattan federal Judge Lloyd MacMahon, wrote a letter to the local draft board......Law clerks were not on the 1968 list of critical jobs that qualified for occupational deferments.