# Draft Dodger \[Harrison Ford\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 5, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947 "2014-01-05T15:30:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/41 "2014-01-06T02:01:57Z")
I think one should consider the actual intent one has when using the term _draft dodger_. To me, it’s rather obvious that it’s used to malign an individual. In every case mentioned in this thread so far, it’s been used in a derogatory fashion. So, yes, “draft dodger” is an insult. And, has been mentioned by others, if one avails himself of the exemptions provided for by law, then it’s not dodging. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/42 "2014-01-06T02:14:37Z")
in politics sometimes policies get inherited. USA involvement in both Vietnam and Cuba both started in the Eisenhower administration. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/43 "2014-01-06T02:17:12Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Define “out of their way.” [Shitting yourself](http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/nugent.asp)? (Yeah, I know he claims he made it all up.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/44 "2014-01-06T02:27:41Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > in politics sometimes policies get inherited. USA involvement in both Vietnam and Cuba both started in the Eisenhower administration. I think you can make a good argument that Kennedy and Johnson inherited Eisenhower’s political involvement in Vietnam. (Eisenhower made the important decision to recognize South Vietnam’s independence and repudiation of the Geneva Accords in 1955, which was a major step.) But Eisenhower avoided any significant military involvement. That arose under Kennedy and was expanded by Johnson. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/45 "2014-01-06T02:29:53Z")
> [@SanDiegoTim](#): > > Correct me if I am mistaken, but are you equating our involvement in VN with Republicans? If so, I would point out our involvement is most associated with presidents Kennedy and Johnson, both Democrats. It ended during the Nixon administration. Yes, but during the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was prominent Democratic politicians—not Republican ones—who became associated with the anti-war stance. And since the Ford administration, it has been Republicans and their conservative supporters who took up the “We could and should have won the war, but we were stabbed in the back by (liberal) politicians.” Post-1975, it is liberals and Democrats who have taken the lesson that our involvement in Vietnam was mistaken and we should endeavor to avoid it. It has been Republicans who have taken the lesson that “we should have let our boys win that one” and have continually looked for opportunities to “prove we can win when we try.” That’s one of the reasons why both Bushes got us into wars in Iraq. In fact, after the the first Iraq War, people openly talked about “lifting the curse of Vietnam” and such nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/46 "2014-01-06T02:41:16Z")
Eisenhower did send military advisers involved in aiding the South Vietnamese army, some were killed in hostile actions. both the politics and military positions started a course. governments tend to be hard to stop once they get headed on a path. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/47 "2014-01-06T02:51:47Z")
I’d have more respect for Ford if he’d followed the example of actor Lew Ayres. As a conscientious objector he refused to bear arms in WWII. He did however volunteer for the Medical Corps and as such was involved in continual frontline action throughout the war. It still wasn’t enough to save his career though. (He lost the role of Dr Kildare in the popular series of movies.) ---
**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 6, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/48 "2014-01-06T02:52:20Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > ISTM that atheists and agnostics would be _more_ opposed to killing, since they can’t comfort themselves that their enemies are either going to a better place; or the enemies begin Evil People, to Hell. If this is all there is, then life is more precious. I am an agnostic, I do happen to believe in an afterlife - I believe that you make your own afterlife. I do my best to live life in what a Christian would call a moral manner, and feel that while I do not know if there is a Christian god, or a Hindu god or no god whatsoever, I will be in a positive place if there is an actual afterlife, if there is reincarnation I do not feel that I will reincarnate in a negative karma condition. If there is nothing of an afterlife, then thems the shakes. I do not feel the need for some angry god to keep me behaving - I treat people the way I wish to be treated. If you treat me like shit, I will avoid you and stop being helpful, and if I need to interact with you, I will do the minimal I absolutely have to. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/49 "2014-01-06T02:58:50Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I’d have more respect for Ford if he’d followed the example of actor Lew Ayres. As a conscientious objector he refused to bear arms in WWII. He did however volunteer for the Medical Corps and as such was involved in continual frontline action throughout the war. It still wasn’t enough to save his career though. (He lost the role of Dr Kildare in the popular series of movies.) You do know there are different kinds of conscientious objection, don’t you? Some believe that it’s wrong to fight and others believe that it’s wrong to even join the military. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/50 "2014-01-06T03:40:31Z")
Harrison Ford never was given the choice of joining the medical corps. He didn’t even officially become a conscious objector. He petitioned his draft board to become one and never got a reply from them. After two and a half years he was given a deferment because his wife had a baby. Apparently that happened sometimes. Some men just sort of slipped between the cracks and were ignored. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/51 "2014-01-06T03:56:57Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Harrison Ford never was given the choice of joining the medical corps. He didn’t even officially become a conscious objector. He petitioned his draft board to become one and never got a reply from them. After two and a half years he was given a deferment because his wife had a baby. Apparently that happened sometimes. Some men just sort of slipped between the cracks and were ignored. Yes, IIRC during the whole Bush-did-he-bother-showing-up-for-National-Guard discussion, someone mentioned that Cheney and his wife had a child when “married” no longer exempted him from the draft. I’m assuming there’s no specific connection of the two - that’s a rather drastic step. I think what the other poster was trying to say was that right-wing view is most often associated with Republicans, and the liberal apologist ant0-Vietnam War view was most often associated wit h outright liberals, who tended to be Democrats. (IIRC the discussion around getting into the first Gulf War had little to do with Vietnam, and more to do with the “is GW Bush a wimp?” meme. The feeling was that Saddam was taking advantage of Bush’s reputation and America’s fear of commitment from Vietnam, much as the Argentinians assumed Britain and Thatcher would do nothing if the Falklands were a fait accompli. First Bush, first War, IMHO did everything right, did everything he was supposed to. ) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/52 "2014-01-06T04:13:07Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I’d have more respect for Ford if he’d followed the example of actor Lew Ayres. As a conscientious objector he refused to bear arms in WWII. He did however volunteer for the Medical Corps and as such was involved in continual frontline action throughout the war. It still wasn’t enough to save his career though. (He lost the role of Dr Kildare in the popular series of movies.) If one goes by [his Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Ayres), the controversy didn’t prevent Ayres from having a successful acting career after the war (there is a vague reference to his last Kildare film being “re-edited” after his CO status became known). His not playing Kildare on TV supposedly stemmed from a different reason. _“He was offered the part of Dr. Kildare in an NBC series. But his prescient request that the show have no cigarette advertising led to the offer being withdrawn, and the part going, in 1961, to Richard Chamberlain.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/53 "2014-01-06T06:44:29Z")
I just figured there were Dodgers, Resisters, and Evader/Avoiders. Sounds to me like Ford followed Legal Means to avoid service. Or “Legal Mean”. He just submitted a CO letter. IMHO, that’s not dodging. It was probably better to submit a letter like that after you registered yet BEFORE you got your letter telling you where and when to report for your Draft Physical. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/54 "2014-01-06T06:50:45Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > If one goes by [his Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Ayres), the controversy didn’t prevent Ayres from having a successful acting career after the war (there is a vague reference to his last Kildare film being “re-edited” after his CO status became known). His not playing Kildare on TV supposedly stemmed from a different reason. > > _“He was offered the part of Dr. Kildare in an NBC series. But his prescient request that the show have no cigarette advertising led to the offer being withdrawn, and the part going, in 1961, to Richard Chamberlain.”_ I was referring to the films not the later TV series. MGM, at the insistence of LB Mayer, fired him and replaced him with Philip Dorn. When Ayres returned from the war the public was in a far more forgiving mood but at the time he declared his CO status things were very different with all the major studios and much of the public vociferously aganst him, as [the NY Times obituary](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/01/arts/lew-ayres-actor-dies-at-88-conscience-bound-his-career.html) made clear. > [@](#): > > In a case of life imitating art, Mr. Ayres was a conscientious objector during World War II and for that reason became a Hollywood outcast. Before the war, he had been one of the most popular leading men in the movies. But when he announced his pacifism, which had a religious basis, he was shunned by the studios, and in some cities exhibitors refused to show his movies. He said that to bear arms would cause him ‘‘to live in a nightmare of hypocrisy.’’ > > After two months in a labor camp, he entered the Army as a noncombatant, serving for three and a half years in the Medical Corps and winning three battle stars. After the war, he resumed his career and made scores of movies, but never reached the peak of his early Hollywood stardom. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/55 "2014-01-06T08:23:28Z")
My great-grandfather’s marriage proposal was: “I need to get married so my youngest brother will not have to do his military service, as my marriage will make him the only unmarried son of a widow. Will you marry me?” Were my great-grandfather, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother or great-great-uncle service dodgers? No, they were simply using the rules as they were written (btw, at the time my great-grandfather and his mother lived almost 900km away, so making him responsible for her well-being and legal decisions as he would have been while his youngest brother was in the service was completely irrational). By the same logic by which the above relatives or Ford were draft/service dodgers, anybody who claims a dependent is a tax evader. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/56 "2014-01-07T02:11:23Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > (IIRC the discussion around getting into the first Gulf War had little to do with Vietnam, and more to do with the “is GW Bush a wimp?” meme. The feeling was that Saddam was taking advantage of Bush’s reputation and America’s fear of commitment from Vietnam, much as the Argentinians assumed Britain and Thatcher would do nothing if the Falklands were a fait accompli. First Bush, first War, IMHO did everything right, did everything he was supposed to. ) It did have a lot to do with wispiness, but the whole Vietnam thing was equally strong, and it was what made the public inclined to go along. The public didn’t care whether G. **H**. W. Bush was able to cast off that image. They did care that this was an opportunity to “make up” for what happened in Vietnam. Rambo: “Are they going to let us win this time?” That was what the whole Powell Doctrine was about—that’s what assured people that _this time things will be different_. It had everything to do with Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![Bannef](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@Bannef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bannef)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/57 "2015-07-29T22:46:03Z")
From what I’ve read, it wasn’t that easy to become a conscientious objector during Vietnam - lots of people who applied for it had it shot down. My guess is the army simply didn’t call on him during the first two years for random reasons, and then his wife was pregnant and he was exempt. I don’t consider applying to be a conscientious objector draft dodging. If they refused to give him that title, and then he ran off the Canada instead of serving, then he’d be a draft dodger. But if you’re never called up, you weren’t really ever drafted, so you didn’t “dodge” anything. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/58 "2015-07-29T22:57:03Z")
Pretty much everybody in my boot camp company was a draft dodger. We joined the Navy to avoid the Army. This is why those who like to trumpet that those who went to Vietnam were mostly enlistees, not draftees, are not exactly being honest about things. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/59 "2015-07-29T23:57:11Z")
> [@SanDiegoTim](#): > > Correct me if I am mistaken, but are you equating our involvement in VN with Republicans? If so, I would point out our involvement is most associated with presidents Kennedy and Johnson, both Democrats. It ended during the Nixon administration. That may be, yet at the grass roots level, it always seemed to be the most conservative people who were also the most hawkish. Growing up in Los Angeles at the time, we often watched KTLA (Channel 5), the local nightly news. This was an era when news shows usually included an editorial spot by the anchor. The station, or at least that anchor, was noticeably right-wing (I believe the station still is very conservative to this day), and he routinely gave blistering hawkish editorials about the Viet Nam war; often also lambasting the restive anti-war students with all their sit-ins and demonstrations at Berkeley. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947/60 "2015-07-30T01:50:09Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > Your claims are at odds with how many people actually use the term, and how some dictionaries define it. Can’t help it if many people are idiots. It’s the same as if I choose to reduce my income tax liability by taking legal deductions I am entitled to. Doing so does not make me a tax cheat or tax evader. BTW neither wiki or the dictionary on my phone define draft dodger the way you do, so cite? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draft-dodger-harrison-ford/677947.md?page=4)