Around this time, my dad told a story about a promise God gave him. During World War II, a young Duane Hatch was sure he would be drafted. Since he was determined to never kill any person, he thought he would apply as a conscientious objector when he turned eighteen. But at the age of seventeen, the Army offered a special arrangement for high school students who met certain scholastic standards.
So the army offered to pay his way through college if he would agree to enlist afterward. After praying about it one evening, my dad says he woke up the next morning knowing for certain it was God's will that he accept this offer, and felt God was promising him that if he accepted he would not see fighting. And so it was that he decided to join the US army on the basis of a God-given promise.
Duane Hatch in 1946 with his younger, shorter siblings.
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The Army sent him to a couple of colleges, including Yale University. By the time he completed the training, the war was over, so the Army sent him to inspect factories in Japan for weapons-making activities. And so it was that he never had to fight, and God's promise to him was fulfilled.
I found this story to be inspiring. And then, as I entered my teenage years, God gave me a similar promise, but for a different war.
Vietnam war promise
In 1970, the United States was fighting in Vietnam.
Men were being drafted into the Army at a record pace, and many were returning home in body bags. So, in order to be more equitable about who would be drafted, the United States began a lottery system. Birth dates were drawn at random and assigned numbers based on the order they were drawn. The lower your number, the more likely you would be drafted.
When the lottery began, I was too young to be drafted into the army, but I knew the lottery for my birth year would come in a few years, and I was worried. So on the day of the very first lottery I asked God if he would grant me a sign, even though this wasn’t the lottery that would determine my fate.
In the request, I was specific. I asked God that if he would promise I would not be drafted, he would have my birthday drawn as the very last date. It seemed like a big request, but I wanted to believe that God could do that, and that he might. So when the lottery drawing was to begin, I sat in our driveway listening to the car radio. I then paid close attention to every date drawn, beginning with the first one. They were painfully slow, and it went on for a long time. Finally, they drew number 364, and my birthday had not been drawn! I was excited since there are only 365 days in a year, and it seemed God had answered my prayer. My birthday was to be assigned number 365!
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Selective Service table for the very first draft lottery drawing. The number drawn on my birth date is circled.
But when they pulled number 365, it wasn’t my birthday. I felt dread and disbelief, and wondered how I could have missed hearing it. Then just as I was about to turn off the radio, they announced one more date would be drawn. It was number 366! I had forgotten that leap years have 366 days, and February 29th had also been a date in the drawing. So the very last number drawn was my June 8
birthday, and I claimed it as a promise from God that I would not be drafted.
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In the year I was to turn eighteen I became worried. I wanted to believe that God would fulfill his promise to me.
But when my lottery number was drawn, it was low enough I thought I might be drafted. But soon after, it was announced that we would withdraw completely from the Vietnam war! So I never received a draft notice, and like my dad's promise, God’s promise to me proved true. •
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