It was a slow day a work and we were discussing Bill Clinton. Not to get political, but how did the US draft work in the Bad Old Days?
BC was an undergraduate at some US university. Before the annual birthday lottery he was in danger of being drafted (should his birth date come up with a low number). At this point he expressed interest to the ROTC on campus of signing a contract and being an officer.
His number did not come up low. He was safe from the draft. He wrote a memorable letter to the ROTC saying he would not sign the contract as he had promised.
OK, but since he was already in university, why did he bother? Weren’t students exempt from the draft?
I feel I am misunderstanding some key point of all this.
There was no lottery when Clinton was in college. Johnson did away with the deferment system in 1968, just before Clinton graduated. People of wealth and/or influence were able to pull strings to either delay or get rid of the pesky draft problem. According to this site, this is what Clinton was able to do. I can’t speak to the accuracy of this person’s facts.
Leaving out the pointless dragging-out of the calendar, Clinton had a student deferment all through his undergraduate years. There was no graduate student deferment at the time he graduated, and Clinton had been designated 1-A (i.e., “you’re going”), but managed to push back his medical exam and induction dates (by lobbying various politicians) so that he could go to Oxford on his Rhodes scholarship. When it looked like this was going to end, he pursued an ROTC deferment, but he never enrolled, instead staying at Oxford. He gave up his deferment, returning to 1-A status, apparently counting on changes in the draft laws to keep him out of the military.
How did the draft work? When you turned 18, you registered for the draft. Various deferments were available: student deferments (you will be eligible for the draft when you graduate), occupational deferments (you’re needed at the home front), deferments for ministers, etc. There were medical deferments and disqualifications, and of course the ROTC deferment (you’re obligated to join in a certain capacity when you’re done). If no deferments apply, and you pass your physical, you’re classified 1-A and instructed to report for induction. You can bypass this by enlisting or by being admitted to the officers’ academy for your service – this option reduced one’s risk of serving as combat infantry.
Not quite. I was an undergrad in the early 1970s, and had a 2-S student deferment for the first couple of years. Then the lottery kicked in, and I drew high numbers each time. My brother, on the other hand, got drafted out of law school in 1968, so Nametag has put his finger on it - the student deferment didn’t apply to grad students.
By the way:
The draftee tried a tube and purred,
“Well what do you know, I’ve been de-furred.”
Well, there’s a discrepancy here. The lottery system started on December 1, 1969. Actually, it was Nixon, not Johnson, who did away with the deferments in 1970-71. The following is a quote from the Selective Service site:
I scarcely know how to respond. My brother sure as hell didn’t volunteer to interrupt his legal education in 1968 and report for duty! According to snopes:
In my own case, as I look into it, during most of 1970, I was simply too young to be drafted. During 1971, it appears that the lottery applied only to men born in 1951. In late 1971, they conducted the lottery to determine the 1972 call-up order for men born in 1952 (me) - the results are here. After 1972, they didn’t draft anyone.
Hey, I’m with ya on that one. I was in college in 1967 and thought I had a deferment. Imagine my surprise upon receiving my induction physical notice. There was abundant rumor that certain educational pursuits were being ignored for deferment, particularly liberal arts, while education, engineering, etc. were being deferred. I was a psych major, so it made sense to me. Bastards.
First of all, you can’t be a “draft dodger” if you never received an induction notice. Getting a letter to appear for a physical is not such a notice. Using “avoidance” instead of “dodging” is just being coy.
Huge numbers of young men during that era took various steps to reduce their chances of being drafted. Myself, I was just a couple pounds over the min. weight for my height and could have easily avoided induction with a couple days of light eating. Conversely, someone I knew was overweight and was routinely called into to be weighed, always being told to lose weight so they could draft them (yeah right). OTOH, my brother knew a guy who shot a toe off with a rifle. That’s how strong anti-war sentiment was among many guys at the time.
There is no way on God’s Green Earth to ascertain who took knowing steps to reduce their odds of being drafted and who didn’t unless they say so and provide evidence backing up their statements. Maybe the guy who lost his toe really had an accident and was trying to spin the story.
E.g., there appears to be no records to confirm or deny any special treatment received by Bush II to get into that special Texas ANG unit. Sure there was a long waiting list and he said he didn’t receive preference, but we have no proof.
Millions of young men got student deferments, tried to get into NG and ROTC units, etc., during that time. Which ones are “draft dodgers” and which ones aren’t?
BTW: There were two initial draft lotteries held when the lottery system started. One for pre-'52 guys and one for '52 guys. I got a very nice number. I.e., I “won”. I was reclassified as “1-H” after the next year.
So, anybody here want to call me a draft dodger? Maybe I got such a nice number because I crossed my fingers. Does it matter to anyone at all?
During the non-lottery years at the height of Vietnam, if you received a notice for an induction physical and didn’t have a medical problem to exclude you or some grease in the works, you were going into the military, believe me.
People who avoided being drafted by dint of legitimate deferment or by exploiting loopholes in the Selective Service Act were only using opportunities afforded them by the law. No problems with that at all. Buying one’s way out by political influence or dollar contributions is just morally wrong to many. At a minimum, it’s a serious inequity in a system that historically has sent the poorest to fight the wars of the rich and influential. ::gets off soapbox::
I dislike Clinton, but not for being a draft dodger. Anyone with any kind of deferment was a draft dodger (as was I, with a IIS). We didn’t volunteer, that’s for sure.
[soapbox_on] That was was so stupid that no one has ever made sense of it. WWI was stupid, but at least France had been attacked. I give a pass to anyone who was fortunate enough to avoid Nam. [soapbox_off]
Deferments peverted the system (if forced labor can ever be non-peverted). If one deferment scheme didn’t work, a guy could usually find another. Which particular trick you used wasn’t important then, and isn’t important now. (At least to me.)
I think our founding fathers would have opposed the draft. Remember how at the time of the American Revolution, people were being “impressed” into the British Navy by way of abduction and con jobs? That was the kind of thing they hated.
I’m not sure how the Founding Fathers would have felt about the draft, but the Impressment Controversies were completely different issues. Prior to the revolution, it was common for the British to send press gangs into coastal communities to grab sailors, but while there was some grumbling about the unfairness, it wasn’t a major national issue. It was simply How Things were Done.
(The system was quite unfair. The navy only worried about its own convenience. They raided coastal towns, and some men were impressed more than once, leaving their families abandoned without warning, while other were passed over for various reasons, entirely at the whim of the officers in charge. Some of the victims weren’t even British, and didn’t enjoy the ‘benefits’ they were forced to defend)
The real Impressment Controversy was between the 1803 revival of the Napoleonic Wars and teh War of 1812. The British -our enemies at war just before and after this period- were seizing Americans even though we were an independent nation. It’d be like the Soviets grabbing Americans for forced service in the Soviet military.
The Founding Fathers absolutely didn’t feel that “you shouldn’t have to do anything you don’t want to, in service of your nation.” I myself oppose the draft, but I’d feel comfortable with a year of mandatory civic service across the board (as implemented in many nations, like Germany -in the 80s, anyways) as an alternative to national mandatory military service. I could see it as a price of citizenship, if administered fairly (too bad there’s absolutely no chance of that!)