Draft "Dodger" vs Draft "Resister": A not-so-subtle difference

[TygrBright]

Just a refresher, and maybe a primer for you young peeps who were born too late to worry about your lottery number:

A draft "resister" describes a person who actively sought, based on a variety of principles, to circumvent, and/or eliminate the draft. Some of the methods resisters used:

Seeking Conscientious Objector status (and lemme tellya, that was NOT easy to get. If you sought it, and were not granted it, your number was up and if you refused to go, you faced jail)

Publicly burning draft cards as a statement against the institution of the draft, or against the particular war that conscription was a tool for prosecuting

Fleeing the country and living as an exile to avoid being part of a military intervention with which they had ethical or moral issues

Facilitating the resistance of others by providing sanctuary and or assistance in fleeing the country, registering as a Conscientious Objector, or working with many of the anti-draft and/or anti-war organizations

Simply refusing to go, and/or fleeing, and facing jail for refusal. Yes, many DID serve time, in jails, prisons, and stockades

A draft "dodger" describes a person who didn't give a rat's ass about the political and ethical principles at stake, they just wanted to save their own ass. Some of the methods resisters used:

Seeking college deferments. Often more than once

Seeking other forms of deferment

Using family influence to circumvent the lottery

Inventing and/or displaying real or faked medical conditions as a means of obtaining deferment

Personally, I have considerable sympathy for both during the Viet Nam war. Conscription enabled the United States to make a terrible error that was fatal for more than 60,000 Americans and millions of Southeast Asian men, women, and children. By the time we were up to our necks in it, there were plenty of clear justifications beyond cowardice for dodging the draft, even if the person doing the dodging wasn't necessarily interested in becoming part of the larger resistance fight.

Finally, however, there IS a third category: the "Chickenhawk". This is the individual who never met a war they didn't enthusiastically fund, support, and/or profit from, as long as neither they, nor their offspring, were required to actually put their own asses in the firing line.

Hope this will clear up some of the confusion regarding what it is, and isn't, nice (or accurate) to call people and why.

helpfully,
Bright