# Question regarding how the draft-dodging system worked **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 19, 2015, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586 "2015-07-19T05:46:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [July 19, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/21 "2015-07-19T18:12:34Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Getting a medical deferment was pretty easy if you had someone to coach you or knew a friendly doctor. There’s an article - I can’t find it - but it’s written by a former student at an Ivy League school. The students got together before the medical inspection by draft board doctors and they looked up all the possible disqualifying conditions. On the inspection day, they were all looking sickly and everyone had a story to complain about. > > As I understand it, all you needed was a letter from a doctor stating that he treated you for your whole life or something and that you had perpetual ulcers or some other disqualifier. Nothing but a paper letter was required - no lab tests, xrays, etc. > > A wealthy man like Trump would have had the connections to get something like that trivially. He might have bribed the doctor, or maybe a friend told him he knew a guy, etc. Trivial. > > The same story talked about how a bus showed up full of inner city blacks. All got off the bus looking as strong and hearty as 18 year old men tend to be. The author knew those were the people who were going to do the dying. No one told them to fake an illness, or that it would be a good idea to do so, or how to do it, etc. You didn’t even have to know or bribe someone. There were activist doctors that would write a deferment for anyone. I recently found out that my Uncle got one for chronic migraines which he really did have but probably not really to the point of not being able to be a soldier. Of course, inner city minorities probably didn’t know about those docs. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/22 "2015-07-19T18:32:56Z")
For a fascinating study of the entire issue of the draft, read “Chance and Circumstances” which details just how fluky the draft could be and strategies that were successfully used to avoid it. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/0394412753/R1JNI3KTV2P3OJ/ref=cm\_cr\_dp\_aw\_rw1?cursor=1&sort=rd](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/0394412753/R1JNI3KTV2P3OJ/ref=cm_cr_dp_aw_rw1?cursor=1&sort=rd) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/23 "2015-07-19T18:38:09Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Obama wasn’t old enough to be drafted … scary Why? Should only guys from the Vietnam era be eligible for the Presidency? > [@](#): > > \ The Canadian constitution prohibits the draft, so “draft-dodging” isn’t a crime there; therefore the Canadians couldn’t legally extradite these folks back to the USA.\ Not so. Canada had conscription in both World Wars. However, the conscription acts were repealed at the end of each war, so at the time of Vietnam, there was no Canadian offence of evading military service. It’s a standard clause in extradition treaties that a person can only be extradited if the alleged offence is a crime in both countries. Since there was no Canadian offence of refusing military service, American draft-dodgers were not liable to extradition. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/24 "2015-07-19T18:42:09Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > W was in a National Guard unit in TX. > > Never came close to harm’s way. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Flying a plane is dangerous? How many pilots in a National Guard unit that wasn’t assigned to a combat zone died? Bush flew F-102 fighter jets. There were 875 of these jets in service. Of these, 259 were lost in accidents during routine training. 70 Air Force and ANG pilots were killed in those accidents. Is that “harm’s way”? On edit: ninja’d by AK84 ---
**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:** [July 19, 2015, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/25 "2015-07-19T18:46:47Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > It’s a standard clause in extradition treaties that a person can only be extradited if the alleged offence is a crime in both countries. Since there was no Canadian offence of refusing military service, American draft-dodgers were not liable to extradition. However, deserters were. If you got to the point of signing the papers, it was too late. The same went for President Ford’s pardon. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/26 "2015-07-19T19:06:08Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > . Since there was no Canadian offence of refusing military service, American draft-dodgers were not liable to extradition. Desertion was not a crime in Canada at the time? I am doubtful. :dubious: ---
**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:** [July 19, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/27 "2015-07-19T19:20:42Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Desertion was not a crime in Canada at the time? I am doubtful. :dubious: There is a distinction between dodging the draft and desertion. ---
**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:** [July 19, 2015, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/28 "2015-07-19T19:22:06Z")
Habeed writes: \> There’s an article - I can’t find it - but it’s written by a former student at an Ivy \> League school. Habeed, I linked to that very article. Why didn’t you bother to read my links? I don’t link to them for the fun of putting links in my posts. I do it because they have relevant facts in them. ---
**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 19, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/29 "2015-07-19T19:39:13Z")
There were many rules about ways to be exempt from the draft (either temporarily or permanently), having to do with physical/medical status, student status, married status, last surviving child, etc. Regardless of any given person’s eligibility for one deferment/exemption or another, it always seemed to be helpful to have “connections”. Skill at speaking in the passive voice is also helpful. Dan Quayle was famously the beneficiary of phone calls that were made. From a presumably official source, [www dot senate dot gov](http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Dan_Quayle.htm): > [@](#): > > Intending to go to law school, Quayle realized that his draft deferment would expire when he graduated from DePauw in 1969. He therefore chose to join the Indiana National Guard, which would most likely keep him out of the Vietnam War. Countless other young men of his generation were making similar decisions, but this act would have serious consequences when Quayle was selected to run for vice president. Grilled by Bush’s staff regarding whether he had any regrets about going into the Guard rather than to Vietnam, he replied, “I did not know in 1969 that I would be in this room today, I’ll confess.” A related question was whether Quayle’s family pulled any strings to get him into the Guard. Interviewed during the convention, Quayle could not recall any special connections but speculated that “phone calls were made.” Identification with his family’s newspaper had further helped gain him assignment as an information officer with the Guard’s public relations unit. ---
**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:** [July 19, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/30 "2015-07-19T19:45:01Z")
Many of the Americans who moved to Canada or other countries because they suspected that they would soon be drafted moved there before getting a draft notice. They went on to get citizenship in that country without ever getting any notice from the American government that they would be drafted. One example is William Gibson. Gibson got an interview before a draft board, but he never got a notice to go for a physical before leaving for Canada: > **[William Gibson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson)** > > William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his early works were noir, near-future stories that explored the effects of technology, cybernetics, and computer networks on humans—a "combination of lowlife and high tech"—and helped to create an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the In... If you weren’t actually drafted, technically you aren’t a draft dodger. ---
**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 19, 2015, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/31 "2015-07-19T20:01:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Flying a plane is dangerous? How many pilots in a National Guard unit that wasn’t assigned to a combat zone died? And, furthermore, did W actually do any flying? Seems like all we ever read about him (regarding his National Guard service) is that he rarely, if ever, showed up at squadron exercises, and somehow never got in trouble for that. (This, from all the liberal lamestream media of course. :dubious:) I never saw any mention of him ever actually flying, or any mention that he ever actually learned how to fly for that matter. ETA: Just saw **AK84** post. Did Bush actually fly the F-102 or any other plane himself? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/32 "2015-07-19T21:21:26Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > If you weren’t actually drafted, technically you aren’t a draft dodger. More than that, attempting to avoid the draft was not dodging it any more than itemizing deductions is tax evasion. The use of draft-dodger for anyone who didn’t want to be drafted and got a deferment is an ideologically-based insult. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/33 "2015-07-19T21:33:39Z")
I think it was in 1968 that I was ordered to appear for my physical. There, we had to fill out a form, and I checked the box for “Homosexual” (the truth). I was taken out of line, and had to confront a “psychologist” sitting at a desk in a tiny room. He asked me all sorts of questions about my sexuality . . . history; frequency; where/how to meet partners, etc. I just answered his questions honestly, and I guess that was sufficient. I also wore my tight white Levi’s, and acted very slightly swishier than normal. I was classified as 1-Y, meaning I could still get drafted, but only if the country was facing war or national emergency. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/34 "2015-07-19T21:52:30Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > And, furthermore, did W actually do any flying? Seems like all we ever read about him (regarding his National Guard service) is that he rarely, if ever, showed up at squadron exercises, and somehow never got in trouble for that. (This, from all the liberal lamestream media of course. :dubious:) I never saw any mention of him ever actually flying, or any mention that he ever actually learned how to fly for that matter. > > ETA: Just saw **AK84** post. Did Bush actually fly the F-102 or any other plane himself? Of course he did and his peers considered him to be a good pilot. You can’t say you were a pilot in the military while seeking national office if you weren’t. Both aviation and the military keep some of the best records around. There are plenty of mysteries surrounding his service overall but the fact that he flew fighters has never been in question. He did stop flying voluntarily two years early with no good explanation but he really did complete fighter training successfully and flew patrols with plenty of other pilots on record. [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-02-15-bush-record\_x.htm](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-02-15-bush-record_x.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/35 "2015-07-19T21:58:41Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Neither Fallows nor Clinton came from rich families, so they can’t be considered to be “rich and connected.” > > Clinton’s mother was a nurse. His father died before he was born and his stepfather ran the service department at a car dealership. His mother and stepfather had some hard times in their marriage and were barely scraping through financially. Both Fallows and Clinton went to top colleges as undergrads (Harvard and Georgetown, respectively), and that’s undoubtedly where they heard about deferment strategies. His stepfather _owned_ the car dealership, and then sold it and bought a 400 acre farm. That’s not poor - it seems pretty wealthy; and this is info from the wikipedia cite you used 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/36 "2015-07-19T22:03:13Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > ETA: Just saw **AK84** post. Did Bush actually fly the F-102 or any other plane himself? You saw **AK84** ’s post but you didn’t follow the link he gave, did you? “Bush had over 600 flight hours when he left the Guard, and 278 of these were aboard the F-102 and TF-102.” ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/37 "2015-07-19T22:05:34Z")
Speaking as one who was in the middle of it, the Vietnam-era draft was so screwed up it was hard to tell who was gaming the system from those whom the system left untouched. Prior to 1965, married men were - if not technically exempt - so low on the priority list they were practically guaranteed not to be called. At that point, troop needs were pretty low, so even if you were drafted, you might spend your active service in West Germany, or never leave the U.S. at all. About that time (Trump was born in 1946, so he would have been eligiblle starting in 1965 or 1966) the flood of baby boomers was so huge that many local boards had a fresh pool of 19-year olds every year to fill their quotas, and never needed to call anyone beyond that group, so if you either had a deferment or managed not to be called in your first year of eligibility, chances were pretty good you’d never be called at all. That was really the era where all sorts of shennanigans were taking place to keep from being drafted in your first or second year of eligibility. In late 1969 the draft lottery was instituted. It was supposed to give some assurance that the system couldn’t be gamed so easily. What it really led to was the people with the highest lottery numbers not _needing_ to game the system so much. The ones with the low numbers were in the same situation as before. The lottery system was only in effect for a few years. The last draft call took place in December 1972. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/38 "2015-07-19T22:14:38Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > His stepfather _owned_ the car dealership, and then sold it and bought a 400 acre farm. That’s not poor - it seems pretty wealthy; and this is info from the wikipedia cite you used 😕 I have been hard on Bill Clinton at times but I have to stick up for his story here. He really did grow up in a family that wasn’t just poor - they were true white trash. Look at his brother Roger even today and his late mother was a real hussy bless her heart. I doubt you are familiar with the area of Arkansas that he is from but I am because I grew up not that far from it and been to Hope, AR many times. That isn’t even the nice part of Arkansas. The whole area is mostly dirt poor today and it was even worse when Bill Clinton grew up there. You may be picturing a large, upscale car dealership like are popular today but that is not accurate. We are talking about a small town auto dealership in Arkansas during the 60’s. All small towns like that had a few of them and the owners generally weren’t rich or even upper-middle class at all. With just a few employees that did everything from sales to oil changes to back office type stuff, most of them struggled to survive and eventually didn’t make it. A 400 acre farm sounds impressive if you live in the Northeast or California today but I can assure you that it was not and still is not in that area. Bulk land like that was as close to free as you can get for anyone that wanted it. Tracts of that size typically went for about $100 an acre and sometimes less. My family bought massive amounts of land around that time for almost no money. That 400 acre farm might have gone for about $40,000 as long as the house was included. It isn’t hard at all to believe that someone could sell off an entire car dealership and then take all the money and think “Screw it, I will just try farming instead”. If that is your idea of wealthy, you aren’t familiar with how demanding farming is. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/39 "2015-07-19T22:44:10Z")
Bush was trained as a fighter pilot (at great expense), and has since claimed that he “strongly supported” the U.S. action in Vietnam. So not a draft-dodger, but definitely a coward. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586/40 "2015-07-19T22:59:54Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I have been hard on Bill Clinton at times but I have to stick up for his story here. He really did grow up in a family that wasn’t just poor - they were true white trash. Look at his brother Roger even today and his late mother was a real hussy bless her heart. I doubt you are familiar with the area of Arkansas that he is from but I am because I grew up not that far from it and been to Hope, AR many times. That isn’t even the nice part of Arkansas. The whole area is mostly dirt poor today and it was even worse when Bill Clinton grew up there. > > You may be picturing a large, upscale car dealership like are popular today but that is not accurate. We are talking about a small town auto dealership in Arkansas during the 60’s. All small towns like that had a few of them and the owners generally weren’t rich or even upper-middle class at all. With just a few employees that did everything from sales to oil changes to back office type stuff, most of them struggled to survive and eventually didn’t make it. > > A 400 acre farm sounds impressive if you live in the Northeast or California today but I can assure you that it was not and still is not in that area. Bulk land like that was as close to free as you can get for anyone that wanted it. Tracts of that size typically went for about $100 an acre and sometimes less. My family bought massive amounts of land around that time for almost no money. That 400 acre farm might have gone for about $40,000 as long as the house was included. It isn’t hard at all to believe that someone could sell off an entire car dealership and then take all the money and think “Screw it, I will just try farming instead”. If that is your idea of wealthy, you aren’t familiar with how demanding farming is. Thank you for the response; the cite alone does not give the needed clarity about the situation to evaluate the situation properly. To add to my confusion, Wendall wrote that the stepfather was a service manager and not the owner - there is definitely a significant difference between those positions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-how-the-draft-dodging-system-worked/725586.md?page=3)