Giuliani had been in an ROTC unit until he failed a physical. In 1968 he sought unsuccessfully to get a deferment but a year later the federal judge he was working for, Lloyd MacMahon wrote a letter to the draft board and got him an occupational deferment. As Jimmy Breslin put it, "MacMahon's letter to Giuliani's draft board state that Giuliani was so necessary as a law clerk that he could not be allowed to get shot at in Vietnam." UPI later noted, "The special draft status came in a year in which more than 14,500 American servicemen lost their lives in Vietnam.
Six years later, as an associate attorney general, Giuliani helped prosecute other draft dodgers.
