Word: draft
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Vice President suggested that draft dodgers should be put into uniform even if the Vietnam war ends. He said that the men killed in Vietnam cannot be "remembered and revered" if "we are extending the hand of forgiveness to those who ran away...
Avoiding military service in South Viet Nam has long been something of a national pastime. On a visit to Saigon back in 1967 (when the country harbored an estimated 40,000 draft dodgers), Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, flatly told the Thieu government that, if it wanted more U.S. troops, it had better get all those long-haired kids roaring around Saigon on motorbikes into khakis. Because of the invasion by the North, avoiding military service has once more become a life-or-death matter for several thousand Vietnamese. The draft has been temporarily expanded to make all males...
...Draft evasion is most widespread among the middle and upper classes, who have the money to buy phony papers or grease the palms of corrupt officials. Rich families simply send their children out of the country, frequently buying a certificate from a doctor stating that they need medical treatment only offered abroad. Some wealthy families even bribe South Vietnamese army helicopter pilots to fly their draft-eligible sons to Cambodia, where a laissez-passer for travel outside Southeast Asia can be purchased easily...
...Viet Cong or that one is the only remaining son in a family. A mother who has lost her only son in combat may sell his identity papers to a willing customer. One 19-year-old bought the papers of a 14-year-old; he beat the draft but wound up back in elementary school...
Despite a recent crackdown by the Saigon government, neither desertion nor draft evasion carries any great stigma among most South Vietnamese, who are weary of a war that has gone on for 25 years. One reason is that family allegiance has traditionally been recognized as the highest loyalty, greater even than that due to one's country. Men like Tran Van Hai are protected by a closely knit community that admires their struggle to avoid military service. Another reason is the pervasive corruption that permits all but the poor to buy their way out of army duty...