Vietnam-Era Marine Pilot Served ‘The Float’

[struggle4progress]

BY TERESA SMITH, Times-Union Staff Writer

“Like everybody else, I did everything I could to avoid the service, to avoid the war,” said Joe Conlon, 57, of his enlistment with the Corps in 1970. “But they were two numbers away from me in the draft.” <snip>

“I don’t regret the time I spent in the service. But if I could have avoided the war, I would have. I don’t resent people who dodged the draft. People talk about President Clinton and President Bush avoiding the draft. Everyone I knew, if they could, would have done the same thing. I considered going to Canada, but I could not bring myself to go. My dad and grandfather served in the military.

“I think the war protesters got us out (of Vietnam). If it wasn’t for them we would have been there longer, I think.

“It’s hard to get across to my students what the national attitude was back then, what living under the draft was like.” <snip>

http://www.timeswrsw.com/N0428050.HTM

[raysr]

1. It was like

being in a movie that you knew the ending. Whatever you did, whoever you were with it was always on your mind. You KNEW that you'd come home someday to THE LETTER.

[bemildred]

2. Well, not everybody did, I knew a few that joined up.

Naive they were. But their government just screwed the
living shit out of them anyway, like the draftees.