Larry McKibben, Iowa representative for the Selective Service Youth Advisory Committee, interrupts the December 1969 draft lottery to read a statement. He claims his statement is written by 14 youth members protesting the removal of the Michigan and Alaska youth delegates after their refusal to draw birth dates for the lottery. The draft lottery continues after the statement is read.
Film opens showing a U.S. Army soldier of the 3rd Infantry Regiment (the old Guard) leading a riderless horse along an avenue in Washington, DC, during the funeral of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Crowds line the sidewalks. Closeup of people watching from the sidelines. Members of the Old Guard, escorting a horse drawn Army caisson bearing the coffin of the former General and President. Voice of President Richard Nixon, is heard, delivering eulogy at the funeral, as the caisson is escorted toward the Capitol building. More closeups of people watching. The Caisson and escorts stop at the Capitol steps where members of the Old Guard form two lines defining a center path. Glimpse of military honor guard with the colors. An Army band assembled in the background. View from behind a group of U.S. Navy sailors standing near the casket. President Nixon with family and friends saluting. Pallbearers from all U.S. military services lower the casket from the caisson. Closeup of solemn observers at sidelines. The pallbearers slowly carry the casket toward the capitol steps, past President Nixon and his group, and begin to ascend the Capitol steps.
The December 1, 1969 Draft Lottery for the year 1970 is held at the United States Selective Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. The draft lottery is led by General Lewis B. Hershey, Selective Service Director. The ceremony begins with a benediction, and then an official pours slips of paper containing birth dates into a glass bowl. Congressman Alexander Pirnie of New York draws the first birth date. He declares the date, September 14, and another man pastes the birth date next to a number on a board. Members of the Selective Service Youth Advisory Committee draw additional birth dates and the board is filled out with the draft sequence.
The Selective Service System (SSS) holds a draft lottery in 1969. The Lottery selection system chooses soldiers for induction into the Vietnam War. Members of the Selective Service Youth Advisory Committee participate in the draft, choosing birth dates from a glass bowl. The dates are read aloud and posted on the draft board. One young man protests the Vietnam War by flashing a Peace sign with his fingers every time he chooses a draft number.
The so-called, "March against Death," extending from Thursday evening (November 13, 1969) throughout that night and all the next day (just before the Moratorium March on Washington). Peace activists protesting the Vietnam War, are seen at night carrying candles as they walk from Arlington Cemetery, past the White House. Dr. Benjamin Spock is one of the protestors. A young girl lights her candle. A woman with a candle as she holds a figure of a white pigeon symbolizing peace. Men move in a line as they protest against the Vietnam War and demand the end of the war. Anti-war activists, walking with placards around their necks that contain names of fallen American soldiers.
Illustrations of pioneers moving westward during early American expansion. Statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial (2 Lincoln Memorial Cir NW, Washington, DC 20002) in Washington, DC. Bird in flight. Vertical view of trees. Statue of Civil War Union Soldier. Montage of Civil War statues and cannon conveying experience of the war. Stream and woodland. Illustrations of Lincoln's Presidential inaugurations in 1861 and 1865. Washington, DC street scene in 1969. Simple stone monument commemorating President Franklin D. Roosevelt.