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...imagine what it was like to be a college senior in early 1969," says Jack Wheeler, 43, a Viet Nam veteran and chairman of Washington's Center for the Study of the Viet Nam Generation. "Winter, ice and a dreadful uncertainty gnawing at you." At that time, less than a year after the Tet offensive, Americans were shocked by the stories and televised images of an increasingly bloody and, to many, pointless war in Southeast Asia. In university dorms and dining halls around the country, students endlessly discussed their overarching obsession: the draft and how to avoid it. "The stress...
...controversy over Senator Quayle's military service has recalled one of the shabbier aspects of American involvement in Viet Nam. Middle-class youngsters often managed to duck military induction, while society's less privileged members did most of the fighting. Some 76% of the 2,150,000 servicemen sent to Viet Nam from 1965 to 1973 came from working-class or lower-middle-class backgrounds. Roughly 25% were from families with incomes below the poverty line. Yet college-educated young men stood a 12% chance of being shipped off to the war, in contrast...
...prospect remained eligible for induction until 26. The law exempted men with medical problems, as well as conscientious objectors, ministers and some in essential occupations. A key provision provided deferment for students. Yet to the horror of college students who had hoped to avoid going to Viet Nam by earning advanced degrees, the revamped Military Selective Service Act of 1967 abolished deferments for graduate study. The maximum penalty for draft dodgers: five years in prison, plus a $10,000 fine...
...seeing combat. Guard members were required to undergo six months of basic training and then provide part-time service, mostly on weekends, for the rest of their six-year tour. Though the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended in the early 1960s that the Guard be sent to Viet Nam, Army Guard units were assigned combat duty only in 1968-69. No more than 20 of the nation's approximately 4,000 units were ever called up. "What the Guard meant," says Jack Wheeler, "was not going to Viet Nam." One exception: Company D of the 151st Infantry, Indiana National...
Feelings about the draft continued to run high after it was abolished. As a freshman Congressman in 1977, Quayle voted to cut off funds for President Jimmy Carter's proposed program to grant amnesty to Viet Nam draft dodgers. Yet Wheeler speculates that Quayle, like others his age, may suffer from a vague sense of shame. "Most men who did not go to Viet Nam feel a twinge of guilt," says Wheeler, adding, "It's unnecessary emotional freight." Wheeler believes Quayle should speak out about the fears and conflicted feelings that so many young men experienced during the war. Such...