A man with a unique birthday - or maybe not

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I’m sure that, to most of you, the name Normie Rowe, means nothing. In the mid-60s, Rowe was an Australian pop star and teen idol. In late 1967, he was drafted into the army and served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970. This effectively ended his pop career as there was a lot of stigma surrounding returning soldiers and they were treated shamefully. Rowe went on to a career in musical theatre and television. What is interesting in this case is that Rowe appears to have had a unique birthday. Of course, he couldn’t really have a unique birth date but please read on. The draft system operated by birth dates being pulled from a hat. All those whose birthdays fell on that date were drafted into the armed services. It was not till many years later that Rowe learnt he was the only one with his birth date, February 1, to be drafted. It was a political decision to try to halt the declining popularity of the then prime minister, Harold Holt, who was also struggling with the anti-war movement. Rowe later played Harold Holt in several TV productions. Image courtesy of: Steve Mc from Byron Bay, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons