Word: draft
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...recent story in The Crimson began: "If war breaks out in the Middle East and the draft is reinstated, resistance to military service could effectively end U.S. involvement, several participants in a forum said last night...
FIFTEEN years ago last month, James M. Fallows '70 published his essay "What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?" in which he described how he and his Harvard colleagues evaded the Vietnam draft. Fallows--a Crimson president and Rhodes scholar--starved himself until he lost enough weight to be medically disqualified from military service...
...more we guaranteed that we would end up neither in uniform nor behind bars [for formal draft resistance], the more we made sure that our class of people would be spared the real cost of the war," Fallows wrote...
...sound overly cynical? Remember, the anti-war protests that the SWARME idolizes disappeared not when hostilities ceased in 1975, but when the draft ended in 1972. I have no doubts that at some level, Harvard peaceniks sincerely wanted peace and justice in Southeast Asia, just as SWARME members want peace in the Middle East. But as Fallows writes, "There was no mistaking which emotions came from the heart, which principles really seemed worth fighting...
...only solution is universal conscription--no exemptions, no deferments. The draft got a bad rap because of its association with an unpopular war, but it remains the best insurance against unjust wars...