Darrell,
Once again, I must suggest that you be more careful with definitions. If you did, your thinking might be clearer. You see, I was never drafted, so I couldn't dodge the draft. I returned my selective service card and never heard from the draft board at all. They just continued to classify me as 2-S until I was given a draft number so high that I was never called.
When you write of Clinton as a draft-dodger, you make the same mistake. A draft-dodger is somebody who refuses to show up for induction after being called, goes "on the lamb," not one who works the system to avoid service. That's why there is little difference between Quayle, Bush and Clinton. 90% of the young men of that era played the same game. Some joined the National Guards, others stayed in school, others joined the Coast Guard. I even had one friend who worked his ass off at the Air Force Academy so he could choose to remain stateside as the prize for being top of his class.
As for being a coward, I faced plenty of dangerous situations during my anti-war days. You may have forgotten that the police liked to smack protestors around back then. They beat one of my friends -- a guy who didn't even think about politics but was dumb enough to get caught in a police sweep -- so badly that he died from brain damage a few years later.
Am I proud of what I did? I wouldn't put it that way, but I'm not ashamed of it either. I did what I thought was necessary and right. The only time I felt like a coward was when I contemplated going along with the system, going into the military despite the fact that I opposed the war, and betting on the probability that I would not be sent to Vietnam and not have to go into combat even if I were. That would have been the cowardly thing to do. Instead, I chose to fight the war and risk going to jail.
What did you do in Vietnam (assuming you were actually there and not just another bs expert claiming he fought there)? Did you actually go into combat or did you sit around Saigon brothels? What makes you an expert on cowardice and courage, my friend? |
