Word: shabbier
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...controversy over Senator Quayle's military service has recalled one of the shabbier aspects of American involvement in Viet Nam. Middle-class youngsters often managed to duck military induction, while society's less privileged members did most of the fighting. Some 76% of the 2,150,000 servicemen sent to Viet Nam from 1965 to 1973 came from working-class or lower-middle-class backgrounds. Roughly 25% were from families with incomes below the poverty line. Yet college-educated young men stood a 12% chance of being shipped off to the war, in contrast...
Until the Daniloff arrest, surveillance of Westerners had often seemed more comical than dangerous. The KGB's imagination is limited to the shabbier vices, and the easy way to avoid being compromised was to steer clear of the usual peccadilloes: sexual misbehavior, currency speculation and smuggling...