Reply #22: True, but the draft started in 1969, years AFTER he was eligible [View All]

[karynnj]

I frankly think this is really a non-issue. Many peopel avoided being drafted - many in completely acceptable ways. I was in that generation - and obviously as a Karyn, I had no worry of being drafted. I had male friends who became teachers, who wouldn't have otherwise. I had one friend join the National Guard. The company that hired me was able to get all their technical staff deferments. (Bell Labs did some important military work - and the company requested that they get deferments even for telephone work because otherwise they would need all their older, more experienced people there - not on the military contracts. This may have been rumor, but it appeared to be true going by the fact that all my male friends there had them. They hired a large number of recent graduates in the early 1970s)

The fact is that John Kerry and Al Gore were exceptions. John McCain was an admiral's son and he likely intended to have a military career. I suspect the reason really didn't go after Bush, Cheney, Quayle - or Clinton, for that matter, is because the majority of them avoided the war too - and likely, at heart, feel more comfortable with that then the conscientiousness of Kerry and Gore, both serving though both had reservations about the war itself.