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About
Author and radio anomaly Jeff Danziger is a political cartoonist for the Rutland Herald, syndicated by the Washington Post New Service. He served in the army 1967-1971, one year in Vietnam in the First Air Cavalry, the 11th ACR and other units. He received the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. It has now been over forty-five years since my tour in Vietnam in the army, a period of time in which I thought I would think about the war less and less. The opposite is true. These days I wonder how such a thing could have happened, not just to me but to the United States as a whole. I am reminded from time to time when I am talking with younger people, and I have to force myself to not talk about the war. I have to make an almost physical effort to only mention the war in passing and go on to other subjects. They, after all, have the present to think about.
But if they do bring it up first, that's a different story. And when they do, their interest is often motivated by their own personal security. For instance, if there's one thing young people interested in my Vietnam War experience want to know about first, it's the draft. What if the draft were reinstated? How did it work?
The rules of the draft back then were sneaky and open to local interpretation, not exercised the same or to the same effect everywhere in the country. In these days of gender equality, it seemed strange that only males were required to register at the age of eighteen. Even stranger that they could avoid being called up if they were in college. That immediately struck my listeners as terribly unfair, which it was. Why should young people who were fortunate enough to be in college not have to share the burden of the war? Why should other young people lacking the intellect or the money for college be sent off to risk their lives fighting? Didn't this hint that the thinking at high government levels was that if a young man were thick enough to get drafted, he deserved less from life? He deserved to be an infantry grunt. If you were dumb and poor you were expendable. Even today, I find that hard to explain.
There were other unfair exceptions. If a man was married by a certain date, or had a child by a certain date, the draft boards had to excuse that man from service. That was the law. If you were drafted and you didn't show up, they came and arrested you. You could go to jail, and then be in the army anyway. It was not only unfair, it was weird. And it got weirder.
For example, there was the somewhat secret stipulation that your draft board could not be changed from the location where you registered at eighteen. The draft boards were made up of local people in local communities. How they were chosen remains a mystery. But they had a normal inclination to protect the young people they knew locally, and choose for service people they didn't know. They had to supply so many draftees a month from the lists of those who had registered in their communities. A friend in my basic training company, John Stephenson, was from Montana and had attended Dartmouth College. He was in Hanover, New Hampshire, when he
But if they do bring it up first, that's a different story. And when they do, their interest is often motivated by their own personal security. For instance, if there's one thing young people interested in my Vietnam War experience want to know about first, it's the draft. What if the draft were reinstated? How did it work?
The rules of the draft back then were sneaky and open to local interpretation, not exercised the same or to the same effect everywhere in the country. In these days of gender equality, it seemed strange that only males were required to register at the age of eighteen. Even stranger that they could avoid being called up if they were in college. That immediately struck my listeners as terribly unfair, which it was. Why should young people who were fortunate enough to be in college not have to share the burden of the war? Why should other young people lacking the intellect or the money for college be sent off to risk their lives fighting? Didn't this hint that the thinking at high government levels was that if a young man were thick enough to get drafted, he deserved less from life? He deserved to be an infantry grunt. If you were dumb and poor you were expendable. Even today, I find that hard to explain.
There were other unfair exceptions. If a man was married by a certain date, or had a child by a certain date, the draft boards had to excuse that man from service. That was the law. If you were drafted and you didn't show up, they came and arrested you. You could go to jail, and then be in the army anyway. It was not only unfair, it was weird. And it got weirder.
For example, there was the somewhat secret stipulation that your draft board could not be changed from the location where you registered at eighteen. The draft boards were made up of local people in local communities. How they were chosen remains a mystery. But they had a normal inclination to protect the young people they knew locally, and choose for service people they didn't know. They had to supply so many draftees a month from the lists of those who had registered in their communities. A friend in my basic training company, John Stephenson, was from Montana and had attended Dartmouth College. He was in Hanover, New Hampshire, when he