# Accounts of guilt-wracked men who weren't drafted in US wars? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 14, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484 "2012-01-14T05:02:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/61 "2013-01-27T04:01:12Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > I had a grandfather who worked in the chemical industry during WW2. His occupation made him classified as a worker engaged in an industry deemed essential to the war effort and ineligible for the draft or enlistment. He apparently tried nonetheless to enlist several times only to be told each time that he couldn’t. Basically the same except my grandfather ran a railroad yard. He was rejected for enlistment several times. ---
**Author:** ![Lucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@Lucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucretia)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/62 "2013-01-27T04:40:30Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I wonder if you’ve interacted much with men before, but by way of experiment I’d suggest the following: Go up to a recent combat vet of Iraq and ask him his story. If he mentions that he worked mainly in places like [the North Zone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iraq_2003_occupation.png), you should then wink and congratulate him for dodging out of real danger in someplace like [Fallujah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah), where Americans were dying in significant numbers. Watch as he chuckles and agrees with you. Maybe even buys you a beer. Unless you, yourself, are also a veteran of Iraq, I really would not recommend you do this. It’s much less likely to end in beer as it is in making the veteran think you’re a giant douche. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/63 "2013-01-27T05:03:47Z")
For the record, I was responding to AK84’s cynical implication that knowing that one’s friends and neighbors were dying on the front lines after 1943 would make a young man of that generation feel blissfully relieved that he wasn’t allowed to enlist, rather than all the more despondent. Tried my best with a contemporary analogy, maybe it was still too obscure, I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![Lucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@Lucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucretia)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/64 "2013-01-27T05:46:16Z")
Ah, I apologize…I missed the sarcasm. In that case, yes, I agree entirely. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/65 "2013-01-27T07:35:51Z")
The conversation reminded me of an event in my own youth. When I was 18, I was worried that the Canadian government would draft men if the first gulf war escalated. My girlfriend, who was in cadets, was mad at me because I didn’t want to risk my life over someone elses bullshit. She thought I should enlist. However, she said she wouldn’t serve if she had the chance. “That is a man’s job” or something to that effect. What is good for the gander ought to be good for the goose I think. I guess I was more of a feminist than she was. A few weeks later while looking through her family album I commented that her dad “sure looked goofy when he was young.” I think he was in the next room… Ironically those were not deal breakers. She got toxic shock syndrome a few weeks after that, and insinuated that it was my fault, though we were not intimate. She broke up with me shortly after. You never hear about toxic shock syndrome any more. I suppose that the tampon and pad producers sorted that out. Things must be safer now? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/66 "2013-01-27T08:11:35Z")
> [@treis](#): > > I have provided data to back up my position. You haven’t. What post did I miss? I’m not saying who’s right or wrong, but I haven’t seen you post any data whatsoever beyond your opinion? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/67 "2013-01-27T09:55:25Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I wonder if you’ve interacted much with men before, but by way of experiment I’d suggest the following: Go up to a recent combat vet of Iraq and ask him his story. If he mentions that he worked mainly in places like [the North Zone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iraq_2003_occupation.png), you should then wink and congratulate him for dodging out of real danger in someplace like [Fallujah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah), where Americans were dying in significant numbers. Watch as he chuckles and agrees with you. Maybe even buys you a beer. :rolleyes: Besides the fact that its hard to make any sense of your post despite your later “clarification”, what I stated is simply factua. The[US Army did suffer actue manpower shortages in thw war](http://www.history.army.mil/documents/mobpam.htm) and these were especially felt in 1944. > [@](#): > > Manpower shortages did cause problems late in the war. By 1944, the scarcity was felt nationwide. The Army curtailed some specialized training programs to provide troops where they were most urgently needed [The primary reason for this was the losses oncurred in combat in 1943](http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/usarmy/manpower.aspx) > [@](#): > > In late 1944 a severe problem in the U.S. Army in general was the manpower shortage. Plans to expand the Army to 213 divisions were never met and it was proving difficult to maintain the 89 divisions then in existence - even though almost one-quarter of them had yet to see combat. Furthermore, the prewar planning for replacements was found to be totally inadequate… > > …Intense combat and heavy losses in 1943 meant that in 1944 many divisions still in the United States were stripped of trained men to build up the replacement pool. Some divisions were stripped of available manpower a second time later in 1944. As it was 1943 saw the first mass casulaty battles for US Forces, Salerno and the subsequent campaigns saw 100,000 causlties in the Fifth Army, and you had eaelier battles in North Africa and Sicily as well. So yes, I by 1943 the idea of being unhappy about not being drafted was rather less common. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/68 "2013-01-27T10:17:49Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > So yes, I by 1943 the idea of being unhappy about not being drafted was rather less common. A plethora of numbers for everything except this, your original snide assertion. Do you have a cite for this sentiment of the times, or do you believe it should be self-evident, or what? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/69 "2013-01-27T13:09:46Z")
Interesting that even today, we still the the term “service”. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/70 "2013-01-27T14:35:44Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Your call of bullshit is wrong…the first quote above is correct > My cite?—personal stories told to me by an 85 year old relative…who himself sat down and sobbed when the army rejected him. I call bullshit on the “it was a different time” idea, not the personal anecdote. ---
**Author:** ![26charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/9d8465/32.png) [@26charlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/26charlie)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/71 "2013-01-27T15:36:04Z")
> [@ecoaster](#): > > I’m asking if this was ever something publicly discussed in the media, but also curious if people have stories about family members or others who dealt with complicated feelings about avoiding/being exempted from military duty… If this interests you, then google bill clinton’s memos to his arkansas national guard commander. He bares all of his feelings regarding serving in the military, especially when it is engaged in a war thats not in the national interest (my interp). Turns out clinton was no different from w bush in that neither wanted to serve in vietnam. Bush had the high level family connections that would exempt him from danger, while appearing to do patriotic service, while clinton had to do his own work to dodge it. If clinton had bush’s connections, we would have seen him in uniform too, posing next to his NG aircraft in arkansas, because that was the route he was on too. I was drafted around that time and in the same boat as clinton, in that i had no connections. I selected to join in order to get a good job, but the jobs i wanted all had to with aviation and those schools were all filled a couple years in advance. If my name was bush, a slot could have opened to me too because that was the only way in to anything related to aviation. Except, instead of following w’s path and not requesting overseas duty, i would have wanted to go. It was more of a will to take part in our country’s adventure than anything else -that coming from being around servicemen rotating to vietnam, when living at clark air base philippines as a teen, during the war’s build-up - 64 to 66 (iow, i’m no warmonger - rather, was a volunteer stretcher bearer at the hospital, for the wounded). I gave w. bush the chickenhawk mantle, until i learned he was doing what was necessary to shed that title - specifically, going to see the military wounded from his decisions and doing so without making it a photo op. President cheney however is a different animal. He said he didn’t serve because he “had better things to do”. Who didn’t tho? He doesn’t have any guilts and neither do the majority of people who dodged the military. It would be nice if everyone was treated the same. IMO, the few that do feel guilt seem to be confused about it and shouldn’t be because the country simply didn’t need them. It would be different if we were short on manpower. So if they put too much importance on it, then their unnecessary guilt problem is a self infliction. They should be like cheney. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/72 "2013-01-28T00:20:40Z")
It’s the reason why Jack Dempsey and Cassius Clay were such good boxers. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/73 "2013-01-28T00:50:38Z")
> [@maggenpye](#): > > Not American, but my Grandfather was rejected by every service during WWII. He was an engineer in the Glasgow shipyards - ‘essential personnel’. > > He was deeply ashamed anyway, especially when some bitch later handed him a white feather. [I had to look up the symbolism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather#A_symbol_of_cowardice). That’s so fucked up. I hope at some point he realized that he was genuinely contributing to the war effort. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/74 "2013-01-28T01:06:47Z")
> [@Lazlo](#): > > [I had to look up the symbolism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather#A_symbol_of_cowardice). That’s so fucked up. I hope at some point he realized that he was genuinely contributing to the war effort. ☹ Thanks. In all seriousness, no, not really. He loved his family, enjoyed his life, but always felt he’d failed at something important. Glasgow was bombed during the war, as well as London. While my mother was born after the bombing, my aunt \*just \*remembers it (born in '38) and they lived in a tenement in Clydebank, making them a prime target. So Grandad was needed, not just at the shipyards, but also for clearing debris and helping survivors. He wanted to face the enemy one on one, it was the \*right \*thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/75 "2013-01-28T03:07:01Z")
> [@26charlie](#): > > If this interests you, then google bill clinton’s memos to his arkansas national guard commander. He bares all of his feelings regarding serving in the military, especially when it is engaged in a war thats not in the national interest (my interp). Turns out clinton was no different from w bush in that neither wanted to serve in vietnam. Bush had the high level family connections that would exempt him from danger, while appearing to do patriotic service, while clinton had to do his own work to dodge it. If clinton had bush’s connections, we would have seen him in uniform too, posing next to his NG aircraft in arkansas, because that was the route he was on too. > > I was drafted around that time and in the same boat as clinton, in that i had no connections. I selected to join in order to get a good job, but the jobs i wanted all had to with aviation and those schools were all filled a couple years in advance. If my name was bush, a slot could have opened to me too because that was the only way in to anything related to aviation. > Except, instead of following w’s path and not requesting overseas duty, i would have wanted to go. It was more of a will to take part in our country’s adventure than anything else -that coming from being around servicemen rotating to vietnam, when living at clark air base philippines as a teen, during the war’s build-up - 64 to 66 (iow, i’m no warmonger - rather, was a volunteer stretcher bearer at the hospital, for the wounded). I gave w. bush the chickenhawk mantle, until i learned he was doing what was necessary to shed that title - specifically, going to see the military wounded from his decisions and doing so without making it a photo op. > > President cheney however is a different animal. He said he didn’t serve because he “had better things to do”. Who didn’t tho? He doesn’t have any guilts and neither do the majority of people who dodged the military. It would be nice if everyone was treated the same. IMO, the few that do feel guilt seem to be confused about it and shouldn’t be because the country simply didn’t need them. It would be different if we were short on manpower. So if they put too much importance on it, then their unnecessary guilt problem is a self infliction. They should be like cheney. tl;dr ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/76 "2013-01-28T14:12:35Z")
> [@lazyboy](#): > > Even though I had friends who were drafted and a couple went to Nam, to me Vietnam and the military was a million miles away. All I cared about in those days was my job, my car, partying and having a good time–period. Now that I’m retired, less than 2 months away from turning 62, I regret it. My feelings are similar and I like your user name too. Except I’m a bit younger and missed the draft because they were drawing down by time I was old enough. I had a very low lottery number and my dad had stated out loud that he was going to send me to Canada if I was drafted. He had done his part in WWII and Korea. I had no reason to even think about Southeast Asia when I was young but looking back, I do sort of feel like I missed something, something that might have made me more of a man somehow. How might serving in Vietnam have changed my life? So many politicians and businessmen have that bond going for them. And I have to wonder how I would have compared to the other men who went. Doesn’t every man wonder how he would do under adversity? Anyway, I can’t say I regret not being drafted but I do sometimes feel like there is a manly club that I will never be in. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/77 "2013-01-28T14:19:19Z")
I was drafted for Vietnam. I would have given anything to be classified 4F, but I could only dream about it. I think our entire company, except for the lifers, felt that way, as none of them volunteered for a useless war. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/78 "2013-01-28T16:39:57Z")
David Niven said his pal Errol Flynn always felt bad about not being able to enlist in World War II because of various health problems (malaria, vd, back pain). A decade later baseball player Mickey Mantle felt bad about not being draft eligible because of osteomyelitis which wasn’t helped by idiotic fans questioning the fact, saying you don’t need to kick the enemy on the battlefield. There were almost certainly a whole lot of factors involved with them having alcohol problems (and NHL star Maurice Richard didn’t have personal problems and he tried several times to enlist in World War II). One person who would be interesting in knowing about would be one time Vice President Hubert Humphrey. He tried twice to enlist but was rejected because of a hernia. In the 1960 Democratic primaries The Kennedy campaign was not shy about bragging about JFK and the PT 109 while subtly asking where was the other guy. But then the Kennedys had more money and mob guys to fix ballot boxes. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/79 "2013-01-28T23:17:00Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > They could enlist. The draft (excepting, I think, WWII) was to make up the difference between the number of enlistees and what they needed. Nope, they kept turning both of mrAru’s grandfathers down because of war related required skill [hard rock miner for one, high scaler/demolitions for the other] that was something needed for the war effort. Many men actually were refused enlistment because they held a job that was needed for the war effort. Actually [and a specialist in the history will chime in soon] there were a LOT of men that were not allowed to enlist - dock workers, miners, farmers, scientists, merchant seamen, railway workers, utility workers - water, gas, electricity. Health concerns - some could be wavered and some not, I seem to remember flat feet, scoliosis, eyesight and hearing, height [too short], heart conditions. I had an uncle wiped out of the sub fleet for biting his nails so he ended up surface fleet - so nervous conditions eliminated some positions. [US, not British or colonials] ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484/80 "2013-01-28T23:19:55Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Nope, they kept turning both of mrAru’s grandfathers down because of war related required skill [hard rock miner for one, high scaler/demolitions for the other] that was something needed for the war effort. Many men actually were refused enlistment because they held a job that was needed for the war effort. > > Actually [and a specialist in the history will chime in soon] there were a LOT of men that were not allowed to enlist - dock workers, miners, farmers, scientists, merchant seamen, railway workers, utility workers - water, gas, electricity. Health concerns - some could be wavered and some not, I seem to remember flat feet, scoliosis, eyesight and hearing, height [too short], heart conditions. I had an uncle wiped out of the sub fleet for biting his nails so he ended up surface fleet - so nervous conditions eliminated some positions. [US, not British or colonials] How does any of this contradict what I wrote? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounts-of-guilt-wracked-men-who-werent-drafted-in-us-wars/609484.md?page=5)