Although all males were required to register for the draft within two weeks of attaining their 18 birthday, the Selective Service System provided ample and diverse loopholes within their classifications to permit those meeting specific criteria to lawfully avoid military service. The abused one was Class II-A, Occupational Deferment. If your employer deemed that your skills were critical to their business, a deferment could have been part of their employment package. Although this classification favored large, politically influential, aerospace and military type contractors, it also applied to firemen, policemen, math and science teachers, and a host of other employment categories of which none applied to me.