Trump is going to say that everybody tried to get a draft deferral but

[Raven]

I know different. I was there in the 60's during the Vietnam War and most guys I knew didn't try to dodge the draft. I am his age and guys like him were not respected in those days.

[Tree-Hugger]

1. My dad

My dad did not. He served. He has some pretty nasty words for draft dodgers.

[lapfog_1]

2. I come from a long line of Navy sailors

And in 1974, after the draft was "over", I was named to the Naval Academy... and was set to go in the fall... right up until the car drove up to our house with the chaplain and a Navy Commander... to tell my parents that my brother (Lt jg) was killed.

So... no Navy Academy...

But my father was an enlisted Naval Aviator (silver eagle)... and served on a destroyer in WWII in addition to becoming a Naval Aviator.

The draft dodger in chief can shove his tweets up his asshole.

[former9thward]

3. I guess it depends which side of the Vietnam War you were on.

I was in SDS and we encouraged draft resistance because we thought the war was illegal and immoral. I still think so. My best friend was the first draft resister sent to prison in the NW. He was proud of that and so was I. Most guys I knew did try and "dodge" the draft by whatever means possible. And their girlfriends encouraged it. I guess you and I were in different worlds at that time.

[cyclonefence]

4. Yes, I opposed the war, but

I never did not support the troops. The best thing we could have done for those serving in Viet Nam was to bring them home sooner, and alive.

Somehow the narrative was created that the anti-war protestors hated the soldiers, but that is not true. We wanted desperately for them not to be sent to that illegal war. So many of the young men I knew who went came back changed, for the worse, unable to even talk about the horrors of that dreadful experience.

The bravest draft-dodgers, I think, were those who were willing to go to jail for it. My husband had a deferment because he was teaching in an inner-city school--which is what he was going to be doing anyway. I know one young man who had a physical deferment--he was 6'4" and weighed something like 140 lbs. "Bone spurs" in a rich kid--disgusting.

[former9thward]

6. If your husband ran for office someone would call him a draft dodger.

Everyone's "good" deferment is someone else's "bad draft dodging". That is the way it is. I am not going to re-write history. Plenty of anti-war protesters hated the U.S. troops and supported victory for the Vietnamese opposing them.

The fact is, at this point in time, very few care about Vietnam anymore. People who did not serve or dodged the draft have beaten those who did serve in presidential elections since 1992.

[cyclonefence]

9. It's funny you should say that

about running for office, because that's exactly what my husband said when he learned he was deferred.

I do take issue with one thing: it is not true that any significant number of *war* protestors hated the troops or wanted N. V. to defeat us. I would say that maybe there were some; I was pretty active in opposing the *war*--not our brave fighters, who sacrificed so much for our country--and I never encountered anyone who did not simply want our troops brought home. Maybe that translates into wanting defeat, but the motivation was to save young men, young men we had gone to high school and college with, young men who'd been our friends since childhood, from dying in that jungle for no good reason. We are your generation; we saw us in you and you in us. We wanted to save you.

[DefenseLawyer]

5. I remember the Hawkeye Pierce line from M*A*S*H

"When they came for me I was hiding under the front porch trying to puncture my eardrum with an ice pick". I don't fault anyone, including Trump, for not being eager to go get killed. What I do fault is when those same guys are the first ones to want to start a war after they are too old to fight.

[Achilleaze]

11. That's the chickenhawk way

deranged and dangerous.

republican role-model Comrade Casino is a champion chickenhawk.

[trof]

7. OK, I was in the Air National Guard.

But it was 1963 and I'd never heard of Viet Nam.
It was two years before the Gulf of Tonkin 'incident'.

I had two aims:
1. Become a commissioned officer
2. Learn to fly
The guard satisfied both of those goals.

Later I learned that the planes we were flying went obsolete during the Korean conflict. The guard used to get the outdated, hand-me-down stuff that the air force no longer used or needed.

Anyway, for my seven years of service I had a pretty safe perch.
I had friends who weren't that lucky.

[elehhhhna]

8. 4F 4F 4F - unfit for duty ! It's right there in the documents! We need to keep screaming 4F until...

whatever.

The 4F Unfit President.

[madokie]

10. I know better too

the weasels today are some of the draft dodgers of yesterday

I joined the navy then volunteered for 'Nam duty and spent 15 months in country Vietnam. Never seen a ship

[Orrex]

12. When Trump says "everybody" in that context...

He means "everybody in my socio-economic circle."