When refering to boats draft is the measure from water level to the lowest part of the boat under the water. In other words it is a measure of the shallowest water the boat can travel in.

In American/Canadian professional sports, the entry draft is the way top-level (major league) franchises claim the rights to amateur players.

Eligibility rules for the draft vary by sport; for example, baseball players may either be selected in the June after their senior year of high school or following their junior or senior years of college, while in American football, at least three football seasons must have passed since their high school graduation before they are selected in an April draft. The duration of the team's rights to the player while a contract is not signed also varies by sport; in hockey, a player drafted out of junior hockey at roughly high-school age who chooses to attend college remains property of that professional team throughout his college career. Compare this to baseball, where rights usually only last one year, but are terminated immediately if the player chooses to attend college (if drafted out of high school) or to return to college (if drafted as a junior).

Major League Baseball and the NFL order player selections in a straight worst-to-first order by round; the worst team from the previous season picks first, then the second-worst, then third-worst, etc., all the way down to the previous season's champion, after which the cycle restarts for another round of the draft. The NHL and NBA use a variation on this, called the lottery, where the worst few teams are selected in a semi-random order (e.g. the worst team may have its name on 10 balls in the bin, down to the 5th-worst only having 1, and balls are drawn out of the bin until each team has a place in the order), to prevent teams close to last place from tanking late in the season to go for the #1 pick.

Baseball does not allow teams to trade draft selections; all three others do.

One way to play Magic: the Gathering, favored by many as it ensures that the game is about skill and not money, a draft usually involves three or more players (if there are only two of you, I suggest you try a Soloman Draft instead), and they need three 15-card booster packs each, and a good amount of basic land (plains, forest, island, mountain, and swamp) each. Each player opens one pack, examines the cards, chooses one, places it face down in front of him, and passes the rest of the cards in the pack to the player next to him. (Usually, the direction in which cards are passed alternates for each pack, so if you're passing to the right for the first pack, you'll pass to the left for the second pack) Each player repeats the process with the cards that have been passed to him. Cards continue to be "drafted" and "passed" until there are none left from the packs which have been opened, and each player opens a second pack and does the same with it, followed by the third pack.

After all of the packs have been opened and all of the cards have been drafted, each player must now construct a deck of at least 40 cards, composed of the cards he drafted and from the communal pile of basic land. Players may not trade cards with each other, nor may they use any other cards they may own. A time limit is usually imposed during official DCI sanctioned tournament play, but in a casual setting, the deckbuilding time isn't over until all of the players agree that they are ready.

After the decks are built, a series of games is played. One way to do this, for four players, is to pair them off at random, and each pair plays to best out of three (or, if you have the time, best out of five), at which point the winner of each game will play against each other, also to best of three (or five), to determine the overall winner.

Most people play for the cards drafted, that is, the overall winner recieves all of the cards that were in the packs. This, of course, is somewhat risky, with booster packs selling at about $3 each, and a player may come out of the draft with nothing, but it gives everyone some motivation to play better.

Say the word "draft" around me— and millions like me— and the shivers come back big time.

The Draft. Selective Service. Conscription. Mandatory military service.

Duty. Honor. Country.

It was a cold wind, and it blew ill.

________________

I’d had a good show, late dinner, a snuggle with my girl friend. I opted to drive home instead of spending the night at her place.

School was winding down and I’d gotten through the worst of it. I was having a good dream, sleeping late. The Old Man, never exactly blessed with tact or timing, trod heavily into my room and tapped me roughly awake. He waved the letter at me. It was thin, not thick. It wasn’t an invitation to the Yale Drama School.

"This came for you," he said matter-of-factly. Five years he’d put in. Africa. Italy. France. Germany. I guess he figured we’d have something in common at last, besides my mother.

I knew what it was without opening it, thought briefly about turning back over, just to piss him off, decided against it, sat up and opened the goddamn envelope.

"Greeting."

Millions of us had to read no further. Two years of messing me about, trying to take away my student deferment, and the good citizens of my little local draft board had finally gotten their way. On a sunny summer morning in 1969, the word came down.

"Greeting."

________________

You know, those clever Brits, throughout their imperialistic years, colonizing, fighting the Spaniards, the French, they used to grab you right off the street or out of the pub, no ifs, ands or buts. "The Press Gang"—empowered by the King, emboldened by numbers, inclination, inebriation and the truncheon—manned the British Royal Navy with impunity. Just up-and-nabbed you, drunk as you often were. Next morning you’d wake up at sea. In His Majesty’s Navy. For years.

Things were a little different in America, a place that got started primarily because of stuff like this. During the Revolution, pretty much all who fought fought because they believed. They fought for their own personal freedom, not that of the guy next door or the rice farmer in the next paddy over.

By 1863, during the Civil War, however, politics complicated things a bit. Conscription was instituted. Uncle Sam could order you to fight your brother, and, surprisingly, people did. However, if you had 300 spare bucks (not a lot of young farmers and millers did in those days) you could buy your way out. If your buddy was a little bit short of a full-deck, or if you were especially gifted in the art of persuasion, like Tom Sawyer say, the government would also allow HIM to take your place.

The Selective Service Act was instituted in 1917 when things heated up to the boiling point in Europe. In the beginning all men between the ages of 21 to 30 had to register for the draft. As needs increased, the ages were 18 to 45. They got my grandfather. He was 19.

There were exemptions. If your work was important to the national cause, if you had a family dependent upon you, if you were somehow disabled physically you wouldn’t have to answer the call. Conscientious objectors were given the opportunity to perform alternate service. This often meant going to war without a weapon, as a medic, during a period when poisonous gas attacks were routine, when amputations were still rampant. If you objected on any grounds other than religious pacifism, you went to prison.

By the end of World War I nearly three million men had been drafted.

As the definitive means of getting out of the Great DepressionWorld War II—began to appear on the horizon, the Selective Training and Service Act was established in 1940. The word selective was important here—a maximum of 900,000 men could be ordered to report, and service was limited to 12 months. By 1941, the period of service was extended to 18 months.

After December 7th, 1941 yet another Selective Service Act made all men between 18 and 45 liable for military service and those between 18 and 65 had to register. Just in case. And forget about a year or six months. You were in until six months after the war ended.

Between 1940 and 1947 over ten million American men were inducted into the military.

Korea came along in ’51. If you were 18 and a half you got to stay in for 24 months, in yet another adjustment to the law. By 1955, with peace breaking out all over, the National Guard was given attention, just in case. Six years of reserve duty was required of inductees, pursuant to the Reserve Forces Act of 1955.

The Military Selective Service Act of 1967 required all men between the ages of 18 and 26 to register for service. The conscientious objector status, family hardship, and physical exemptions dating back to the Civil War were still in place, and in addition students received deferments. It is no surprise that student deferments during the Vietnam War became a political hot potato. By 1970 a lottery system was put into place. Men were drafted randomly, according to their birthdays. Abuse of the system continued, however. The soldiers I met in Vietnam were largely black, Hispanic, poor, uneducated and uninformed. Their blood, however, was all the same color.

As the Vietnam disaster grew, a more-experienced, better-educated America had had enough. Mass demonstrations, refusals to serve, prison for famous people like Cassius Clay and David Harris, Joan Baez’s pacifist husband, all contributed to the abolition of military conscription.

In 1973, the all-volunteer army became a reality. Draft resisters who had been imprisoned or emigrated to Canada were pardoned by President Gerald Ford.

However, in 1980, Congress reinstituted draft registration for all men between the ages of 18 and 25. You’ve gotta sign up, within 30 days of your 18th birthday. Just in case.

________________

So I rolled out of bed, too early by far, that sunny morning so very long ago, just as I was going to do every morning for two more years—the length of time it took the Army to teach me that freedom, indeed, is not free.




On Vietnam:

REMFS

  1. I was a prisoner in a Mexican Whorehouse
  2. A long time gone
  3. How to brush your teeth in a combat zone
  4. Libber and I go to war
  5. Fate takes a piss
  6. Thanks For the Memory
  7. Back in the Shit
  8. LZ Waterloo
  9. Saturday Night, Numbah Ten

grunts
Phantom

a long commute
Andy X Kirby True
a tale of two Woodstocks
Buy a Gun
Dawn at The Wall
Draft
Feat of Clay
Funeral Detail
I was a free man once, in Saigon
The Joint Chiefs of Staff
the shit we ate

AK-47
Breaking Starch
Combat Infantryman Badge
David Dellinger
Dickey Chapelle
Firebase Mary Ann
Garry Owen
Gloria Emerson
Graves Registration
I Corps
MOS
Project 100,000
REMF
the 1st Cav
The Highest Traditions
Those Who Forget
Under the Southern Cross
Whither the Phoenix?

A Bright Shining Lie
Apocalypse Now Redux
Hearts and Minds
We Were Soldiers

The poker variation draft is played as a standard seven-card stud except with the following variants. A standard seven-card stud hand starts with 1 down and 2 up cards. This play is identical. Starting with the third card, and continuing through the fourth, fifth, and sixth card (street), the dealer will deal face-up cards to the center of the table, one for each player. The player with the lowest showing hand chooses one of these cards and adds it to his face-up hand. Then the next lowest player “drafts” his card and so forth until the highest showing hand takes the final center table card. The final, normally facedown card, is dealt as such: facedown to each player. From there play and betting continues as normal. As with most poker variations, a high/low variation is highly possible to tag on.

Draft (draft), n. [The same word as draught. OE. draught, draht, fr. AS. dragan to draw. See Draw, and cf. Draught.]

1.

The act of drawing; also, the thing drawn. Same as Draught.

Everything available for draft burden.
S. G. Goodrich.

2. (Mil.)

A selecting or detaching of soldiers from an army, or from any part of it, or from a military post; also from any district, or any company or collection of persons, or from the people at large; also, the body of men thus drafted.

Several of the States had supplied the deficiency by drafts to serve for the year.
Marshall.

3.

An order from one person or party to another, directing the payment of money; a bill of exchange.

I thought it most prudent to defer the drafts till advice was received of the progress of the loan.
A. Hamilton.

4.

An allowance or deduction made from the gross weight of goods. Simmonds.

5.

A drawing of lines for a plan; a plan delineated, or drawn in outline; a delineation. See Draught.

6.

The form of any writing as first drawn up; the first rough sketch of written composition, to be filled in, or completed. See Draught.

7. (Masonry)

(a)

A narrow border left on a finished stone, worked differently from the rest of its face.

(b)

A narrow border worked to a plane surface along the edge of a stone, or across its face, as a guide to the stone-cutter.

8. (Milling)

The slant given to the furrows in the dress of a millstone.

9. (Naut.)

Depth of water necessary to float a ship; the depth below the water surface to which the bottom of a ship sinks when bearing a specific load. See Draught.

10.

A current of air. Same as Draught.

 

© Webster 1913


Draft, a.

1.

Pertaining to, or used for, drawing or pulling (as vehicles, loads, etc.). Same as Draught.

2.

Relating to, or characterized by, a draft, or current of air. Same as Draught.

⇒ The forms draft and draught, in the senses above-given, are both in approved use.

Draft box, Draft engine, Draft horse, Draft net, Draft ox, Draft tube. Same as Draught box, Draught engine, etc. See under Draught.

 

© Webster 1913


Draft (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Drafted; p. pr. & vb. n. Drafting.]

1.

To draw the outline of; to delineate.

2.

To compose and write; as, to draft a memorial.

3.

To draw from a military band or post, or from any district, company, or society; to detach; to select.

Some royal seminary in Upper Egypt, from whence they drafted novices to supply their colleges and temples.
Holwell.

4.

To transfer by draft.

All her rents been drafted to London.
Fielding.

 

© Webster 1913

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