As far as I know, he had actual CO draft status, but I know of no alternate service that he performed. I’m almost positive that there wasn’t – he went straight from undergrad to grad school, including moving from Illinois to Austin. They moved to Austin in 1963 (I think) and I (their oldest child) was born in 1967.
Alternate service isn’t always a requirement. There were several programs for alternate service, some COs were allowed to take non-combat roles in the military, others were simply not required to serve. Establishing CO status is the difficult part. Religious exemptions are common, but not always allowed. I registered for the draft as a CO. No one cared, the draft was active but no one was called up anymore. I was prepared to serve in a non-combat role.
BTW: Three COs who served in non-combat roles were awarded the Medal of Honor.
So what? It’s not the symptom of some insidious rich-guy favoritism, it’s more that the professors didn’t want to send someone they knew to Vietnam if they could help it.
Look at it this way; would you have intentionally sent someone to Iraq or Afghanistan if the chances were good that if you didn’t, someone poorer would go in their place?
Saying that you’d say yes is every bit as classist as what you suggest was going on, just in the opposite direction. The fact of the matter was that Vietnam sucked and not a whole lot of young men wanted anything to do with it. The government policies on deferments and the like didn’t help matters much either, but they’ve changed them now.
I can’t really fault someone in the professor’s spot, nor can I fault someone in say… GWB’s spot- high lottery number, yet joined the Texas ANG anyway. He could probably have just stayed home and not joined the military at all, and people probably would have castigated him for not volunteering.
In my mind, the only people who should be called “draft dodgers” are people whose lottery numbers came up, and who then engaged in a campaign of doing actions that were ethically and legally questionable to avoid their military obligation. Availing oneself of deferments that you qualify for doesn’t really count, but fleeing to Canada, or getting bogus medical deferments for conditions you don’t have, or claiming to be gay when you’re not all do count.
Personally, I wondered why they didn’t do something like join a service other than the Army or Marines; most Navy and Air Force personnel stayed stateside, and even the ones that didn’t were typically on reasonably well guarded and appointed air bases and ships, not humping it in the boonies up to their ankles in stagnant water.
You have to look at the context. Mr Khan was speaking in comparison to his own son, who volunteered for duty, and never came back, despite having a career in law waiting for him. Under those circumstances and considering Donald’s attacks on his family I’m completely fine with Mr Khan calling Donald a draft dodger. He could have said instead “shirked his duty”, which would have been more accurate but I’m not going to be pedantic about a gold star father giving an emotional response to Donald’s attacks.
If we’re talking about the Vietnam era draft, here are my thoughts. There was draft dodging, draft avoidance, and draft resistance. 3 different things.
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Draft resistance is the easiest thing for me to define: “No, I will NOT take the oath!” usually followed by a 2 year minimum stint in a Federal Penitentiary unless you could afford a good lawyer.
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Draft dodging is next easiest to define: Heading up to Canada. Faking an illness for your physical. Or falsely claiming homosexuality.
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Draft avoidance… this is the tricky one because there were many flavors. Dan Quayle and George W Bush avoided the draft by joining the National Guard. Joining the reserves was a way to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Joining the Peace Corps. Going to college and maintaining a passing GPA (until the lottery came in). Being married with children made one less draftable. Having a private physician find a legitimate medical condition that would have been unnoticed in a typical assembly line draft board physical (the medical condition that got Rush Limbaugh his 4-F status was the same one his father managed to get a waiver for so he could serve in WWII). Getting Conscientious Objector status. Becoming a Quaker or some other religious deferment. A deferment status came with some professions also. And there were other ways also.
Then some guys got out of being drafted by enlisting in the Army. They’d get a choice of school to attend. They’d have to stay in a year longer, but figured that working in a motor pool was better than humping a rifle in the jungle. And there was the Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard.
I don’t see the point of distinguishing “dodging” from “avoidance.”
It was what Bill Clinton did before he knew what his lottery number was that make the label of “draft dodger” more appropriate for him than for Trump. Although I agree it is a non-issue for Trump - nobody who doesn’t already hate Trump cares about this.
On a related note, Hillary Clinton claimed she tried to join the Marines in 1975, shortly before marrying Bill. Unfortunately this appears to be another typical Clintonism - unverified, self-serving, with no supporting evidence and a certain amount of reason to conclude that it is other than factual.
Regards,
Shodan
This thread, to me, is an example of asymmetric thinking. I think Donald can probably be called a draft dodger. But more importantly–I think we shouldn’t give any nuanced view to issues relating to Trump. He throws out insults constantly and without thought, and while I think this is a minor issue, I see no reason not to view him negatively whenever possible–even on the thinnest pretext, and without giving Donald the benefit of either doubt or deep investigation of the issue.
Trump’s behavior over 40 years in the public eye and in business have built up a “reasonable predisposition” assuming that in any given incident Trump behaved poorly and disreputably, until proving otherwise.
I see a reason.
Our discussion should be about fighting ignorance. Your approach does not do that: it instead creates a rule that squelches investigation of the actual truth.
Trump has generously presented the country with dozens of actual horrible flaws, flaws which survive rigorous and complete investigation. We are certainly capable of acknowledging a positive – or neutral – aspect of his biography while remaining deeply horrified at the remaining flaws.
The actions Ranger Jeff described as resistance were acts of civil disobedience, protest actions that were intended to publicly flaunt the (unjust) law and suffer the consequences.
Dodging techniques were also clearly illegal and could get you thrown in prison if you were caught. That’s why Jimmy Carter specifically pardoned draft evaders in 1977. But no one stood on the courthouse steps saying, “I got a doctor to write a false diagnosis of asthma so I won’t pass the physical!”
Draft avoidance was roughly the same as using legitimate tax deductions to reduce your tax bill. If I own a home and take a mortgage interest deduction and you rent and can’t take the deduction, it sucks to be you, but it’s all proper and above-board.
But the draftees, draft avoiders, and enlisted troops ALL despised the rich and politically connected kids who got into National Guard or Reserve units to escape being sent overseas.
I believe in fighting ignorance for the common good, I don’t believe in doing so to help Donald Trump. He has $3-4bn and the resources of the RNC, $70m cash in hand with his campaign, to fight these battles. Someone who has slurred so many, I see no reason to give “nuanced” views out for his various innumerable negative personal tales.
When there are so many good (metaphorical) explosive devices to ignite under the Trump campaign, I see no need to deploy this wet firecracker.
Besides, the guy seems more interested in appeasing Russia and avoiding foreign conflict than in starting wars, so whacking him for alleged hypocrisy over his non-military service doesn’t seem like it would be very fruitful.
That was given as an example of avoidance. All forms of which were to escape being sent overseas–which in all cases equals someone else with less pull or wiles being forced to go instead–but only some of which represented an actual inability to serve, oneself.
And this is why I brought up this topic.
Part of Trump’s monologue is how the media and Democrats aren’t being honest about the state of America and about Trump himself. Those politically opposed to Trump taking pot shots that aren’t really backed up play into his (and his supporters’) thinking.
There are PLENTY enough criticisms of Trump that can be easily documented so as to never need to overplay your hand when arguing against him.
Slight hijack about conscientious objectors.
I believe there’s a movie about him coming out soon.
But there was a pecking order even among avoiders. Different classifications required varying levels of “commitment”, and got different levels of respect. At the top of the list were the Conscientious Objectors, who were subject to having to serve non-combat or alternative service. Then there were the various hardship deferments, the occupational deferments, and at the bottom were the men with family connections who got into draft-exempt positions with no effort on their part.
Here is where I would disagree with you, that may have been the common parlance at the time, but a generation (or two) later, after three presidential campaigns (Clinton, Bush, and now Trump) where the issue has come up it no longer it is. You could claim that it is a dumbing down (and a privileged generation forgetting what the draft was all about), but all three candidates have been described as “draft dodgers”. That is the way the English language works, there is no commitee that decides what the definition of a word is.
I’d call draft dodging taking active steps to avoid the draft, while draft avoidance was going through the usual system. Going to school was draft avoidance - we all would have gone anyway. Being a CO is also, since COs put themselves through the existing process.
I’d put going to a doctor know to find reasons to get someone declared 4F is dodging. Going to the doctor and discovering you have something wrong with you that makes you 4F is avoidance. We don’t know that Trump went to a doctor with a record of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I actually think the strategy for defeating Trump is to hammer ever nail visible.
I disagree. The service of fighting ignorance may assist a sinner and besmirch a saint; that’s not a reason to eschew the fight. Ultimately, the long run benefits from an informed view of the world in all its particulars, even if in once case Trump’s interests are advanced.
Put another way: I refuse to let Donald J. Trump deter my interest in fighting ignorance.