* must call Jerry Ford today and thank him.

[No Mandate Here.]

cause, thirty years ago, Ford pardoned the Vietnam era draft resisters and DESERTERS.

On This Day
On Sept. 16 ...
1974: President Ford announced a conditional amnesty program for Vietnam War deserters and draft evaders.


This allowed a certain * to grow up and become Preznit.

Oooops. Take that back. He never grew up.

[alphafemale]

1. ewwwwooohhh ...that's cold.

I think I like you.
}(

[murielm99]

2. It was Jimmy Carter who did that. nt

[No Mandate Here.]

3. Not according to the NYTimes

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[Kolesar]

5. How did you do that?

How did you know where you could pull up a vintage NY times headline? Is there some special search function?

[No Mandate Here.]

7. Go to NYTimes.com

<http://www.nytimes.com/>, and scroll down until you get to the On This Day feature, usually near the bottom on the right. There are usually several links there. Hit the "On Sept. 16th" link, and you will get a page that lists a lot of events in history. There will be a small image of the front page, and a link to enlarge it. Once open, right click on the image and ask it to Copy Image Location. Then paste it in the post window, using the correct brackets (on edit, they don't show up correctly on the post. They are the ones next to the P key, in lower case.)

[Kolesar]

10. thanks

So if one checks that feature at the NY Times often, one will find such stories. I was thinking that you had searched on it.

[murielm99]

6. Ford offered limited amnesty. When Carter was elected,

he granted a full pardon to anyone who dodged the draft.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Bingo!!!!

The "amnesty" Ford putzed with never had any real support since he knew it was political suicide with a right wing that was starting to push their boy by the name of Raygun.

Ford had crappy popularity ratings his entire "term". First, there was the Nixon pardon (talk about losing your initial "bounce"), the the fall of Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam, rising oil prices (worse than today) and inflation (anyone still have a WIN button around?). He was grasping for straws to see if something would give him an uptick.

Now with Von Rumsfeldt as his Secretary of Defense and Crashcart as his Chief of Staff, would Ford have really gone ahead with pardoning those long-haired socialist commies from Canada?

[WI_DEM]

14. Ford offered Amnesty but Carter's first act as president was

pardoning Vietnam era deserters "to heal the wounds"

[secular_warrior]

4. Actually, I think it's great Ford did that.

As history has shown us, that war was illegal and no American should've died fighting it. If I was alive back then I would've evaded the draft if it came to that. There's no way I would've gone to the jungles of Vietnam to be killed or mamed for anti-American chickenhawk politicians. WWII was the last legitimate war where America was really fighting for freedom. I would've volunteered for WWII. The survival of the world depended on beating back Hitler and fascism.

I applaud those like Bill Clinton who opposed the Vietnam War and refused to fight in it; they were doing so on moral grounds. I have a BIG problem with those like Bush who SUPPORTED the Vietnam War and refused to fight; they're chickenhawks.

[WildClarySage]

8. Unfortunately, not all Americans at that time

felt as you (rightly) do, that fascism had to be defeated. Some Americans *ahem* felt it was ok to support and profit with them. I used'ta know who they were... hmmm... a very prominent family... the name escapes me... just can't think of it...

[IwoVet1945]

11. Korea?

"WWII was the last legitimate war where America was really fighting for freedom"

What about Korea? Was that not about freedom? I must say, if you had seen what I had seen from 50-53 you would agree that the Korean War was also about freedom.

[newyawker99]

13. Hi IwoVet1945!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[maine_raptor]

15. Howdy IwoViet1945

Welcome, friend. :toast:

Ahyup, Korea was the last "good war", too bad has taken so long to get that out.

S!

[No Mandate Here.]

16. Your screen name implies you are of the Greatest Generation,

(I think that is the title of Brokaw's book.) as well as a WWII vet.

If these assumptions are correct, please accept my sincere thank you to you for serving then.

Also, Welcome to DU. If I had a guess, I would say that the majority of DUers are a bit younger than you. Well done, and Welcome!

[secular_warrior]

18. I agree, and I honor your service to America

What taints the Korean War, IMO, like the Gulf War is that they were both later used as models for illegitimate wars (Vietnam and Iraq), and both used to justify later wars on the decision of the president instead of the congress.

I strongly believe that the decision to go to war should not be in the hands of one man; there's a reason the founding fathers set up the constitution the way they did. Only Congress can declare war; it is consistent with the 'checks and balances' nature of American government.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. But Ford didn't do it, Carter did. Ford talked about it.

Also, Bill Clinton did not refuse to fight in Nam. He considered filing for conscientious objector status and he wrote a letter detailing his objections to the war.

However, the reason he never served in the military was that he was deferred from the draft while in college and grad school -- which was perfectly legal and standard procedure for guys who went to college -- and then the lottery system of selecting draftees begun and Clinton's number was low.

Nothing Clinton did constitutes draft evasion or draft dodging, despite what the RW will tell you. Filing for CO status wouldn't have been draft evasion, either, if he had chosen to do that.

Selective Service laws were often updated, with deferments for married men ending early, followed by the end of grad school deferments, and then the end of fatherhood deferments. Needless to say, people were kept guessing and on edge.

[ButterflyBlood]

17. Ford did it somewhat

he offered a conditional amnesty since the wingnuts in his party would go insane if he did what Carter did. I'll give him credit for doing something at least, but what Carter did was the true right thing.