Word: viets
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...choice. They, along with those who chose conscientious objection or outright draft resistance and jail, acted because they opposed the war. This may have been right or wrong, but it was a serious moral decision with serious moral consequences. The National Guard, by contrast, was a way to avoid Viet Nam and the moral consequences at the same time. There is no evidence that the war Quayle ducked is one he opposed, let alone made any effort to end. Perhaps these days, with no draft and no war, people really do join the National Guard out of patriotism...
...selection, Quayle became a political bumper car careering from one public relations crack-up to another. During an awkward press conference on Wednesday and five erratic television interviews that night, Quayle was constantly unhinged by the question that torments many of his generation: What did you do during the Viet...
...imagine what it was like to be a college senior in early 1969," says Jack Wheeler, 43, a Viet Nam veteran and chairman of Washington's Center for the Study of the Viet Nam Generation. "Winter, ice and a dreadful uncertainty gnawing at you." At that time, less than a year after the Tet offensive, Americans were shocked by the stories and televised images of an increasingly bloody and, to many, pointless war in Southeast Asia. In university dorms and dining halls around the country, students endlessly discussed their overarching obsession: the draft and how to avoid it. "The stress...
...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...
...prospect remained eligible for induction until 26. The law exempted men with medical problems, as well as conscientious objectors, ministers and some in essential occupations. A key provision provided deferment for students. Yet to the horror of college students who had hoped to avoid going to Viet Nam by earning advanced degrees, the revamped Military Selective Service Act of 1967 abolished deferments for graduate study. The maximum penalty for draft dodgers: five years in prison, plus a $10,000 fine...