Word: draft
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Those who oppose universal amnesty take pains to distinguish deserters from draft resisters. The latter, they argue, may have been honestly opposed to the war for reasons of conscience, since they refused to participate from the beginning. Deserters, on the other hand, took an oath to serve in the military, and then reneged on their commitments. Opponents often portray deserters as cowards who fled the battlefield...
...fact, the only difference between deserters and draft resisters is the time they chose to end their involvement in the war--before or after induction. And this difference related directly to class, race, and educational background...
...Draft resisters are largely white, upper-middle class, and college-educated. Caught up in the campus anti-war movement, they had ready access to draft counseling and the resources to go to Canada or Europe...
Carter himself seems to understand the narrowness of the distinction between draft resisters and deserters. "Where I come from," he has said, "most of the men who went off to fight in Vietnam were poor. They didn't know where Canada was. They didn't have the money to hide from the draft in college...
...entry, even after charges have been dropped, of men who have avoided military service and subsequently changed their citizenship. Amnesty should also expunge the criminal records of the thousands of civilians arrested during non-violent protests and grant immunity from prosecution to men who did not register for the draft...