Involvement with Cuba did start with a Republican administration, William McKinley.
By any way you measure it most of those in Viet Nam were volunteers. You don’t join the army infantry or become a Marine 0311 to avoid going to war. Draftees were about 25% of the casualties.
IIRC, a couple of conscientious objectors received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
A good friend of mine got a low number in the lottery and got to the point of taking his physical before he was able to land a spot in the California National Guard. He referred to himself as a draft dodger.
Desmond Doss is probably the most famous. Mel Gibson apparently is still planning on making the story into a movie but it’s been pushed back several times. There was a documentary made in 2004.
My 18th birthday occurred after I had registered for school at the local junior college, and I did not know enough to ask for an educational exemption. Which was okay, since I didn’t last long in college.
When I was 19-3/4, I was called up to take the draft physical. I got a note from my doctor saying that I had had an injury to my back that should disqualify me for service. I also spent much of the time between receiving the “invitation” and the actual event, wondering how I would decide between going to Viet Nam or going to Canada.
When I got to the physical, they didn’t ask for my doctor’s note until I had already been through everything else. The person requesting said material glanced at it, and just filed it with the rest of my papers. I was afraid that they had decided that I was just the kind of guy they wanted, but the last test I had before that had been a vision test, including the doctor taking a look at my current glasses.
I knew I had bad vision, since I had been wearing glasses since first grade, but my best friend also had glasses with lenses as thick as mine, and he had joined the navy (in order to dodge the draft) without any problems.
It turns out that I have an extreme astigmatism in one of my eyes. I was told that the Army could not furnish me with glasses for my prescription. 1-Y.
So, I had intended to “dodge the draft” by seeking a medical exemption, which was denied, but I was exempted anyway for another matter entirely.
A short while later, the White House announced the lottery system, with Nixon drawing the first ball for birthdate and the first ball for last name initial. He picked my birthday and my last initial; I was sure that I would called back for a retry, but it never happened.
Sometime later, they abolished the 1-Y classification, and I became 4-F.
So, I didn’t have to decide between Viet Nam and Canada. I strongly suspect that I would have chickened out and ended up in Viet Nam.
What I see here is a great little story with some alliteration for a magazine article. But, without any correspondance to collaborate his CO status I have my doubts. He did achieve exempt status after he got married and had a child which is what actually stopped him from being drafted.
Everything else is just entertainment.
Was I a draft dodger because I had a high lottery number and they didn’t get to me?
Good point. Those maligning others for “draft dodging” really should be maligning all those who were eligible for not volunteering and thus obviating the draft in the first place. But, of course, the maligning seems to me to be done for political reasons.
High number and they ended the draft just before I turned 19 (they didn’t want immature 18-yr-olds in this man’s unvolunteer army!), so I didn’t have the opportunity to become a draft dodger, but our good Uncle did send me some less-insistent invitations to the festivities in SE Asia that I declined without an RSVP. Not sure what that leaves me as, other than unpatriotic scum. I got over it. Brother didn’t, so when the shooting was done he put in a few years as a Navy JAG. He had the prerequisites: he was already a lawyer and a jag.
I was subject to the draft in 1973. My draft lottery number was 333