Draft dodger
Encyclopedia
Draft evasion is a term that refers to an intentional failure to comply with the military conscription
policies of the nation to which he or she is subject. Such practices that do not involve law breaking or which are based on conscientious objection
are sometimes referred to as "draft avoidance." Refusing to submit the draft is considered a criminal offence in most countries where conscription is in effect.
Those who practice draft evasion are sometimes pejoratively referred to as "draft dodgers," a term which was made popular during the Vietnam War
.
Draft evasion is distinct from desertion
in that only an active member of a military service can become a deserter by absenting himself from military service without receiving a valid leave of absence or discharge and without any intention of returning to the service.
is defined as reducing or eliminating one's tax liability through legal means, draft avoidance is the elimination or mitigation of a potential conscript's military service obligation through some lawful procedure. The Vietnam era version of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1968) simply defined draft dodger as "one who avoids military service" regardless how it was done. Some means of draft avoidance:
The term draft resister specifically refers to someone who explicitly refuses military service - simply attempting to flee the draft is draft evasion.
at the time, though locally it was known as Draft Resistance or active non-compliance, see conscription in Australia
. There was a film made about a draft dodger in Australia during the later stages of the Vietnam War that is often shown as part of Australia's film heritage at Screen Sound Canberra. Because of Australia's lesser involvement in the Vietnam War, New Zealand did not emerge as a destination for Australian draft dodgers.
. While the move was not inherently unpopular outside of French Canada, the true controversy lay in the fact that conscripts were not compelled to serve outside of Canada (i.e. in combat zones). This changed in 1943 when the 13th Canadian Brigade of the 6th Canadian Infantry Division
was embarked for combat employment against the Japanese in the Aleutian Islands. Several men deserted rather than embark; in the end, the brigade did not meet the enemy, which had fled. The fact that the Aleutians were technically North American soil had permitted the employment of the draftees, who were still not permitted to serve abroad by the conditions of their employment.
N.R.M.A. men were derisively known as "Zombies" by "G.S. Men" (those who had volunteered for General Service, or in other words, consented to serve in combat zones). Conscription had been a dividing force in Canadian politics in the First World War (precipitating a political crisis
) and Prime Minister Mackenzie King
vowed in the Second to introduce "conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription." In November 1944, following costly fighting in Italy, Normandy
and the Scheldt
, approximately 16,000 N.R.M.A. men were sent to Northwest Europe on the heels of a second crisis
.
The number of men who actively sought to evade the draft in Canada is not known. Because of the delay in deploying them overseas, historians do not consider their number significant.
, it sent only "full time all volunteer professional soldiers" to Vietnam. Nevertheless, many New Zealand men refused to register for national service and lost their right to vote and were denied or removed from government employment. The government never acted on its threats of lengthy jail time for refusal. National Service, including its registration process, was abolished in December 1972.
. It discontinued the draft in 1973, moving to an all-volunteer force. In the United States, refusal to serve is punishable by a maximum penalty of up to 5 years in Federal prison and/or a fine of US$
250,000.
was carefully drawn to remedy the defects in the Civil War system by allowing exemptions for dependency, essential occupations, and religious scruples and by prohibiting all forms of bounties, substitutions, or purchase of exemptions. In 1917 and 1918 some 24 million men were registered and nearly 3 million inducted into the military services, with little of the overt resistance that characterized the Civil War.
In the United States during World War I
, the word "slacker" was commonly used to describe someone who was not participating in the war effort, especially someone who avoided military service, an equivalent of the later term "draft dodger". Attempts to track down such evaders were called "slacker raids."
There was some opposition to the draft even before the major U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The large cohort of Baby Boomers who became eligible for military service during the Vietnam War also meant a steep increase in the number of exemptions and deferments, especially for college and graduate students. VA statistics show that U.S. troops in Vietnam represented a much broader cross section of America than is commonly believed and only 25% of troops deployed to the combat zone were draftees (compared to 66% during World War II). A total of 8.615 Million men served during the Vietnam era and of them 2.15 Million actually served in the Combat Zone so less than 540,000 draftees went to Vietnam. Three-fourths of those deployed were from working families and poor youths were twice as likely to serve there than their more affluent cohorts although the vast majority of them were volunteers. Some draft eligible men publicly burned their draft cards which was illegal but the Justice Department only brought charges against 50 of which 40 were convicted.
As U.S. troop strength in Vietnam increased, more young men sought to avoid the draft. Enlisting in the Coast Guard, though it had more stringent standards for enlistment, was one alternative. Only 15,000 National Guardsmen were activated and sent to Vietnam. Vocations to the ministry and the rabbinate soared, because divinity students were exempt from the draft. Doctors and draft board members found themselves being pressured by relatives or family friends to exempt potential draftees.
Other means included finding, exaggerating, or causing physical and psychological reasons for deferment, whether in the temporary "1-Y" classification, or the permanent "4-F" deferment. Physical reasons such as high blood pressure could get a man exempted. Antiwar psychiatrists could often find dormant mental conditions to be serious enough to warrant exemptions. Draft counselors, and the Selective Service System itself, emphasized that there was no such thing as an "exemption" from the draft, only a "deferment". Even the coveted status of 4-F (which by the late 1960s had lost its shameful connotation) was technically a deferment, implying that even 4-Fs might have to serve if America were invaded, as a home guard.
"Draft Dodger Rag
", a 1965 anti-war
song by Phil Ochs
, circumvented laws against counseling evasion by employing satire to provide a how-to list of available deferments: ruptured spleen
, homosexuality
, poor eyesight
, flat feet
, asthma
, caregiver
for invalid relative, college enrollment, war industry worker
, spinal injuries, epilepsy
, flower and bug allergies, multiple drug addictions
, and lack of physical fitness
. Folksinger Arlo Guthrie
lampooned the paradox of seeking a deferment by acting crazy in his song "Alice's Restaurant
": "I said, 'I wanna kill! Kill! Eat dead burnt bodies!', and the Sergeant said, 'you're our boy'". "1001 Ways to Beat the Draft" was a text on draft evasion by musician Tuli Kupferberg
, a member of The Fugs
. Methods he espoused included arriving at the draft board in diapers or feigning homosexuality. Another text popular with men subject to the draft was a 1950s cartoon novella by Jules Feiffer
, Munro, in which a four-year-old boy is drafted by mistake. Some men, taking an idea from the book, said they might ask the sergeant at the draft examination to "button me, Mister".
The better educated and economically advantaged were in a better position to obtain deferments through loopholes or technicalities. They had greater access to expert advice, counseling, psychiatric professionals and attorneys.
Many lawyers worked during the Vietnam war "pro bono" as draft counselors for the American Friends Service Committee
and other antiwar groups to counsel men on their options. They were aware that laws, on the books since World War I, forbade Americans to counsel draft evasion. Therefore the AFSC was careful to present the potential inductee with his choices in neutral and factual terms.
During the Vietnam War, an active movement of draft resistance also occurred, spearheaded by the Resistance organization, headed by David Harris. The insignia of the organization was the Greek letter omega
, Ω, the symbol for ohms—the unit of electrical resistance
. Members of the Resistance movement publicly burned their draft cards or refused to register for the draft. Other members deposited their cards into boxes on selected dates and then mailed them to the government. They were then drafted, refused to be inducted, and fought their cases in the federal courts. These draft resisters hoped that their public civil disobedience would help to bring the war and the draft to an end. Many young men went to federal prison as part of this movement.
In 1969, in response to criticism of the draft's inequities, the U.S. government adopted a lottery system to determine who was called to serve. At the same time it implemented new standards that greatly restricted the availability of deferments. They were ended for graduate students and limited for undergraduates.
Conscription ended in 1973. The end came after a series of lawsuits challenged the draft upon its re-enactment and renewed conscription in 1972 without regard to the 90-day waiting period required in the original Korean War
era draft law (section 20 of the Act) that remained in the 1972 Act (which U.S. Attorneys defending conscription argued was as a result of a legislative drafting error). A series of challenges to the draft under section 20 in 1971 and 1972 lead by Justice William O. Douglas
to issue an injunction against induction that covered the states in the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
. It became so difficult for the Selective Service System to unwind the mess the Section 20 cases caused (and to draft men according to the priorities required by law—the "order of call" named after the "order of call" defense), that the draft was quietly ended—just in time for the wind down of the Vietnam War.
During the Vietnam War, only 30,000 of the 210,000 accused of dodging the draft left the country. A total of 30,000 deserters and draft dodgers combined went to Canada. Though their presence there was initially controversial, the government eventually chose to welcome them. Draft evasion was not a criminal offense under Canadian law. The issue of deserters was more complex, because desertion was a crime in Canada, and the Canadian military was strongly opposed to condoning it. In the end, the government maintained the right to prosecute these deserters, but in practice left them alone and instructed border guards not to ask questions relating to the issue. Eventually, tens of thousands of deserters were among those who found safe refuge in Canada, as well as in Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom.
Those who went abroad faced imprisonment or forced military service if they returned home. The U.S. continued to prosecute draft dodgers after the end of the Vietnam War. In September 1974, President Gerald R. Ford offered an amnesty program for draft dodgers that required them to work in alternative service occupations for periods of six to 24 months. In 1977, one day after his inauguration, President Jimmy Carter
fulfilled a campaign promise by offering pardons to anyone who had evaded the draft and requested one. It antagonized critics on both sides, with the right complaining that those pardoned paid no penalty and the left complaining that requesting a pardon required the admission of a crime.
Some draft dodgers returned home to the United States after the 1977 amnesty, but according to an estimate by sociologist
John Hagan, around 50,000 settled in Canada. This young and mostly educated population expanded Canada's arts and academic scenes, and helped push Canadian politics further to the left. Notable Americans who left for Canada and became prominent there include Jay Scott
and Michael Hendricks. Other draft evaders from the Vietnam era remain in Europe.
Among the prominent political figures whose opponents have accused them of improperly avoiding the Vietnam-era draft were George W. Bush
, Dick Cheney, and Bill Clinton.
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
policies of the nation to which he or she is subject. Such practices that do not involve law breaking or which are based on conscientious objection
Conscientious objector
A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....
are sometimes referred to as "draft avoidance." Refusing to submit the draft is considered a criminal offence in most countries where conscription is in effect.
Those who practice draft evasion are sometimes pejoratively referred to as "draft dodgers," a term which was made popular during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
.
Draft evasion is distinct from desertion
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
in that only an active member of a military service can become a deserter by absenting himself from military service without receiving a valid leave of absence or discharge and without any intention of returning to the service.
Avoidance, evasion, resistance and desertion compared
It is possible to draw a contrast between draft evasion and draft avoidance. Just as tax avoidanceTax avoidance
Tax avoidance is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage, to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. The term tax mitigation is a synonym for tax avoidance. Its original use was by tax advisors as an alternative to the pejorative term tax...
is defined as reducing or eliminating one's tax liability through legal means, draft avoidance is the elimination or mitigation of a potential conscript's military service obligation through some lawful procedure. The Vietnam era version of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1968) simply defined draft dodger as "one who avoids military service" regardless how it was done. Some means of draft avoidance:
- Becoming a conscientious objectorConscientious objectorA conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....
, whether one's anti-war sentiment is religious or otherwise. Peace churchesPeace churchesPeace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating Christian pacifism. The term historic peace churches refers specifically only to three church groups among pacifist churches: Church of the Brethren, Mennonites including the Amish, and Religious Society of Friends and has...
, such as Jehovah's WitnessesJehovah's WitnessesJehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
, Mennonites, AmishAmishThe Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
, BrethrenChurch of the BrethrenThe Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination originating from the Schwarzenau Brethren organized in 1708 by eight persons led by Alexander Mack, in Schwarzenau, Bad Berleburg, Germany. The Brethren movement began as a melding of Radical Pietist and Anabaptist ideas during the...
, Christian anarchists, Rastafari and Quakers, oppose any kind of military service for their members, even in non-combatantNon-combatantNon-combatant is a term in the law of war describing civilians not taking a direct part in hostilities, as well as persons such as medical personnel and military chaplains who are regular soldiers but are protected because of their function as well as soldiers who are hors de combat ; that is, sick,...
fields, but are not opposed to alternative non-uniformed civilian service. Note that many people who support conscription will distinguish between "bona fideBona FideBona Fide is a studio album from rock band Wishbone Ash. It is the first studio album in six years and is the only studio album to feature guitarist Ben Granfelt...
" conscientious objection and draft dodging, which they view as evasion of military service without a valid excuse. Conscientious objection would be considered evasion if the sentiment was not genuine. - Seeking excusal from military service due to health reasons - this would be considered evasion if the purported health issue was feigned or overstated.
- Claiming to be homosexual, when the military in question excludes homosexuals - this would be considered evasion if the claim was false, and avoidance if the claim is true.
- Marrying and/or fathering children, if the military in question will grant deferments to spouses and/or parents.
- Seeking and receiving a student deferment as in the cases of Bill ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, Joe BidenJoe BidenJoseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...
and Dick CheneyDick CheneyRichard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
. This would be considered evasion if false or misleading academic credentials were used. - Applying for a job in an "essential" civilian occupation and seeking deferment on those grounds - often this required a letter from the potential draftee's employer to be accepted. After receiving deferment as a student, 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani received further deferment after his occupation as a law clerkLaw clerkA law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court. Most law clerks are recent law school graduates who...
was deemed "essential" by the Selective Service. - Non-pacifist churches have at times deferred missionariesMissionaryA missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
as "divinity students". During the Vietnam War the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became embroiled in controversy for deferring large numbers of its young members. The LDS church eventually agreed to cap the number of missionary deferments it sought for members in any one state; however, this generally did not stop LDS missionaries who lived outside UtahUtahUtah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
(such as 2008 presidential candidate Mitt RomneyMitt RomneyWillard Mitt Romney is an American businessman and politician. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and is a candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination.The son of George W...
) from receiving deferments with relative ease. - Simply declining to enlist, if the potential conscript appears likely to avoid the draft through sheer "luck of the draw." During the Vietnam War, not all eligible young men were drafted; many who had a high lottery numberDraft lottery (1969)On December 1, 1969, the Selective Service System of the United States conducted two lotteries to determine the order of call to military service in the Vietnam War for men born between 1944 and 1950...
simply took no action, knowing that they were unlikely to ever be drafted. Declining to enlist is not evasion, however some hold the view that young persons (or young men) of combat age have an affirmative duty to enlist in the military during wartime, even if not drafted. - Paying a stand-inStand-inA stand-in for film and television is a person who substitutes for the actor before filming, for technical purposes such as lighting.Stand-ins are helpful in the initial processes of production. Lighting setup can be a slow and tedious process; during this time the actor will often be somewhere else...
to take one's place if drafted. In most countries this is no longer legally sanctioned, but it was a lawful and very common practice in the U.S. Civil WarAmerican Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Grover ClevelandGrover ClevelandStephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
, who later became the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Fourth President of the United StatesPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, paid a substitute during the U.S. Civil WarAmerican Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, an act for which he was criticized when he ran for President. - In some countries it is often possible to evade military service by bribingBriberyBribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
corrupt draft officers, or by finding a doctor who will certify one as medically unfit. - Moving out of the country. (Unless a citizen of dual nations)
The term draft resister specifically refers to someone who explicitly refuses military service - simply attempting to flee the draft is draft evasion.
Australia
Draft dodging was also common in AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
at the time, though locally it was known as Draft Resistance or active non-compliance, see conscription in Australia
Conscription in Australia
Conscription in Australia, or mandatory military service also known as National Service, has a controversial history dating back to the first years of nationhood...
. There was a film made about a draft dodger in Australia during the later stages of the Vietnam War that is often shown as part of Australia's film heritage at Screen Sound Canberra. Because of Australia's lesser involvement in the Vietnam War, New Zealand did not emerge as a destination for Australian draft dodgers.
World War I
During the First World War, Canadians who did not want to be conscripted left for the US. The number of Canadians avoiding conscription via going to the US was in relative population terms less than the equivalent numbers of Americans coming to Canada during the Vietnam War.World War II
Canada introduced conscription in 1940 via the National Resources Mobilization ActNational Resources Mobilization Act
National Resources Mobilization Act is a Canadian government statute which enabled conscription in Canada during World War II. The bill, passed by Parliament on June 21, 1940, permitted conscripts to be used for home defence only and not to be deployed overseas but was modified lolin August 1942 to...
. While the move was not inherently unpopular outside of French Canada, the true controversy lay in the fact that conscripts were not compelled to serve outside of Canada (i.e. in combat zones). This changed in 1943 when the 13th Canadian Brigade of the 6th Canadian Infantry Division
6th Canadian Infantry Division
The 6th Canadian Infantry Division was a Canadian infantry division formed in 1942 during the Second World War. It was attached to Pacific Command. The division had a brigade sent to the Aleutian Islands Campaign, particularly at Kiska, but never saw action...
was embarked for combat employment against the Japanese in the Aleutian Islands. Several men deserted rather than embark; in the end, the brigade did not meet the enemy, which had fled. The fact that the Aleutians were technically North American soil had permitted the employment of the draftees, who were still not permitted to serve abroad by the conditions of their employment.
N.R.M.A. men were derisively known as "Zombies" by "G.S. Men" (those who had volunteered for General Service, or in other words, consented to serve in combat zones). Conscription had been a dividing force in Canadian politics in the First World War (precipitating a political crisis
Conscription Crisis of 1917
The Conscription Crisis of 1917 was a political and military crisis in Canada during World War I.-Background:...
) and Prime Minister Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...
vowed in the Second to introduce "conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription." In November 1944, following costly fighting in Italy, Normandy
Battle of Normandy
The Invasion of Normandy was the invasion and establishment of Allied forces in Normandy, France, during Operation Overlord in World War II. It was the largest amphibious operation in history...
and the Scheldt
Battle of the Scheldt
The Battle of the Scheldt was a series of military operations of the Canadian 1st Army, led by Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds. The battle took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands during World War II from 2 October-8 November 1944...
, approximately 16,000 N.R.M.A. men were sent to Northwest Europe on the heels of a second crisis
Conscription Crisis of 1944
The Conscription Crisis of 1944 was a political and military crisis following the introduction of forced military service in Canada during World War II. It was similar to the Conscription Crisis of 1917, but was not as politically damaging....
.
The number of men who actively sought to evade the draft in Canada is not known. Because of the delay in deploying them overseas, historians do not consider their number significant.
New Zealand
Although New Zealand did have a system of compulsory conscription commonly known as national serviceNational service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
, it sent only "full time all volunteer professional soldiers" to Vietnam. Nevertheless, many New Zealand men refused to register for national service and lost their right to vote and were denied or removed from government employment. The government never acted on its threats of lengthy jail time for refusal. National Service, including its registration process, was abolished in December 1972.
United States
The United States has employed conscription (mandatory military service, also called "the draft") several times, usually during war but also during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. It discontinued the draft in 1973, moving to an all-volunteer force. In the United States, refusal to serve is punishable by a maximum penalty of up to 5 years in Federal prison and/or a fine of US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
250,000.
World War I
The Selective Service Act of 1917Selective Service Act of 1917
The Selective Service Act or Selective Draft Act was passed by the Congress of the United States on May 18, 1917. It was envisioned in December 1916 and brought to President Woodrow Wilson's attention shortly after the break in relations with Germany in February 1917...
was carefully drawn to remedy the defects in the Civil War system by allowing exemptions for dependency, essential occupations, and religious scruples and by prohibiting all forms of bounties, substitutions, or purchase of exemptions. In 1917 and 1918 some 24 million men were registered and nearly 3 million inducted into the military services, with little of the overt resistance that characterized the Civil War.
In the United States during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the word "slacker" was commonly used to describe someone who was not participating in the war effort, especially someone who avoided military service, an equivalent of the later term "draft dodger". Attempts to track down such evaders were called "slacker raids."
Vietnam War
As U.S. troop strength in Vietnam increased, more young men sought to avoid the draft. Enlisting in the Coast Guard, though it had more stringent standards for enlistment, was one alternative. Only 15,000 National Guardsmen were activated and sent to Vietnam. Vocations to the ministry and the rabbinate soared, because divinity students were exempt from the draft. Doctors and draft board members found themselves being pressured by relatives or family friends to exempt potential draftees.
Other means included finding, exaggerating, or causing physical and psychological reasons for deferment, whether in the temporary "1-Y" classification, or the permanent "4-F" deferment. Physical reasons such as high blood pressure could get a man exempted. Antiwar psychiatrists could often find dormant mental conditions to be serious enough to warrant exemptions. Draft counselors, and the Selective Service System itself, emphasized that there was no such thing as an "exemption" from the draft, only a "deferment". Even the coveted status of 4-F (which by the late 1960s had lost its shameful connotation) was technically a deferment, implying that even 4-Fs might have to serve if America were invaded, as a home guard.
"Draft Dodger Rag
Draft Dodger Rag
"Draft Dodger Rag" is a satirical anti-war song by Phil Ochs, a U.S. protest singer from the 1960s known for being a harsh critic of the American military industrial complex...
", a 1965 anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
song by Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
, circumvented laws against counseling evasion by employing satire to provide a how-to list of available deferments: ruptured spleen
Ruptured spleen
Rupture of the capsule of the spleen, an organ in the upper left part of the abdomen, is a situation that requires immediate medical attention. The rupture of a normal spleen can be caused by trauma, such as a car accident.-Function In the Body:...
, homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, poor eyesight
Visual acuity
Visual acuity is acuteness or clearness of vision, which is dependent on the sharpness of the retinal focus within the eye and the sensitivity of the interpretative faculty of the brain....
, flat feet
Flat feet
Flat feet is a formal reference to a medical condition in which the arch of the foot collapses, with the entire sole of the foot coming into complete or near-complete contact with the ground...
, asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
, caregiver
Caregiver
Caregiver may refer to:* Caregiver or carer - an unpaid person who cares for someone requiring support due to a disability, frailty, mental health problem, learning disability or old age...
for invalid relative, college enrollment, war industry worker
Reserved occupation
A reserved occupation is an occupation considered important enough to a country that those serving in such occupations are exempt - in fact forbidden - from military service....
, spinal injuries, epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, flower and bug allergies, multiple drug addictions
Substance use disorder
Substance use disorders include substance abuse and substance dependence. In DSM-IV, the conditions are formally diagnosed as one or the other, but it has been proposed that DSM-5 combine the two into a single condition called "Substance-use disorder"....
, and lack of physical fitness
Physical fitness
Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness , and specific fitness...
. Folksinger Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
lampooned the paradox of seeking a deferment by acting crazy in his song "Alice's Restaurant
Alice's Restaurant
"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is a musical monologue by singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie released on his 1967 album Alice's Restaurant. The song is one of Guthrie's most prominent works, based on a true incident in his life that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the...
": "I said, 'I wanna kill! Kill! Eat dead burnt bodies!', and the Sergeant said, 'you're our boy'". "1001 Ways to Beat the Draft" was a text on draft evasion by musician Tuli Kupferberg
Tuli Kupferberg
Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg was an American counterculture poet, author, cartoonist, pacifist anarchist, publisher and co-founder of the band The Fugs.-Biography:...
, a member of The Fugs
The Fugs
The Fugs are a band formed in New York in late 1964 by poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, with Ken Weaver on drums. Soon afterward, they were joined by Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber of the Holy Modal Rounders...
. Methods he espoused included arriving at the draft board in diapers or feigning homosexuality. Another text popular with men subject to the draft was a 1950s cartoon novella by Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
, Munro, in which a four-year-old boy is drafted by mistake. Some men, taking an idea from the book, said they might ask the sergeant at the draft examination to "button me, Mister".
The better educated and economically advantaged were in a better position to obtain deferments through loopholes or technicalities. They had greater access to expert advice, counseling, psychiatric professionals and attorneys.
Many lawyers worked during the Vietnam war "pro bono" as draft counselors for the American Friends Service Committee
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...
and other antiwar groups to counsel men on their options. They were aware that laws, on the books since World War I, forbade Americans to counsel draft evasion. Therefore the AFSC was careful to present the potential inductee with his choices in neutral and factual terms.
During the Vietnam War, an active movement of draft resistance also occurred, spearheaded by the Resistance organization, headed by David Harris. The insignia of the organization was the Greek letter omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
, Ω, the symbol for ohms—the unit of electrical resistance
Electrical resistance
The electrical resistance of an electrical element is the opposition to the passage of an electric current through that element; the inverse quantity is electrical conductance, the ease at which an electric current passes. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with the mechanical...
. Members of the Resistance movement publicly burned their draft cards or refused to register for the draft. Other members deposited their cards into boxes on selected dates and then mailed them to the government. They were then drafted, refused to be inducted, and fought their cases in the federal courts. These draft resisters hoped that their public civil disobedience would help to bring the war and the draft to an end. Many young men went to federal prison as part of this movement.
In 1969, in response to criticism of the draft's inequities, the U.S. government adopted a lottery system to determine who was called to serve. At the same time it implemented new standards that greatly restricted the availability of deferments. They were ended for graduate students and limited for undergraduates.
Conscription ended in 1973. The end came after a series of lawsuits challenged the draft upon its re-enactment and renewed conscription in 1972 without regard to the 90-day waiting period required in the original Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
era draft law (section 20 of the Act) that remained in the 1972 Act (which U.S. Attorneys defending conscription argued was as a result of a legislative drafting error). A series of challenges to the draft under section 20 in 1971 and 1972 lead by Justice William O. Douglas
William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...
to issue an injunction against induction that covered the states in the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...
. It became so difficult for the Selective Service System to unwind the mess the Section 20 cases caused (and to draft men according to the priorities required by law—the "order of call" named after the "order of call" defense), that the draft was quietly ended—just in time for the wind down of the Vietnam War.
During the Vietnam War, only 30,000 of the 210,000 accused of dodging the draft left the country. A total of 30,000 deserters and draft dodgers combined went to Canada. Though their presence there was initially controversial, the government eventually chose to welcome them. Draft evasion was not a criminal offense under Canadian law. The issue of deserters was more complex, because desertion was a crime in Canada, and the Canadian military was strongly opposed to condoning it. In the end, the government maintained the right to prosecute these deserters, but in practice left them alone and instructed border guards not to ask questions relating to the issue. Eventually, tens of thousands of deserters were among those who found safe refuge in Canada, as well as in Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom.
Those who went abroad faced imprisonment or forced military service if they returned home. The U.S. continued to prosecute draft dodgers after the end of the Vietnam War. In September 1974, President Gerald R. Ford offered an amnesty program for draft dodgers that required them to work in alternative service occupations for periods of six to 24 months. In 1977, one day after his inauguration, President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
fulfilled a campaign promise by offering pardons to anyone who had evaded the draft and requested one. It antagonized critics on both sides, with the right complaining that those pardoned paid no penalty and the left complaining that requesting a pardon required the admission of a crime.
Some draft dodgers returned home to the United States after the 1977 amnesty, but according to an estimate by sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
John Hagan, around 50,000 settled in Canada. This young and mostly educated population expanded Canada's arts and academic scenes, and helped push Canadian politics further to the left. Notable Americans who left for Canada and became prominent there include Jay Scott
Jay Scott
Jay Scott was the pen name of Jeffrey Scott Beaven , a Canadian film critic.Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Scott fled to Canada in 1969 as a draft dodger. He settled in Calgary, and began writing film reviews for the Calgary Albertan a few years later...
and Michael Hendricks. Other draft evaders from the Vietnam era remain in Europe.
Among the prominent political figures whose opponents have accused them of improperly avoiding the Vietnam-era draft were George W. Bush
George W. Bush military service controversy
George W. Bush's National Guard service was an issue in the 2000 presidential campaign and in the 2004 presidential campaign. A controversy centered on questions of how George W...
, Dick Cheney, and Bill Clinton.
Further reading
- Cortright, David. Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War (Re-issue). Chicago: Haymarket Books. 2005.
- Foley, Michael S. Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2003.
- Hagan, John. Northern Passage: American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada. Boston: Harvard University Press. 2001.
- Halstead, Fred. GIs Speak Out against the War: The Case of the Ft. Jackson 8. 128 pages. New York: Pathfinder Press. 1970.
- Kasinsky, Renee. Refugees from Militarism: Draft-Age Americans in Canada. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. 1976.
- Simons, Donald L. I Refuse: Memories of a Vietnam War Objector. Trenton, NJ: Broken Rifle Press. 1992.
- Todd, Jack. Desertion: In the Time of Vietnam. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001.
- Williams, Roger Neville. The New Exiles: American War Resisters in Canada. New York: Liveright. 1970.