If you weren't drafted into the service - THANK MIKE GRAVEL!

[Taverner]

In 1971, then Senator Mike Gravel embarked on a one-man filibuster against legislation renewing the military draft. Using various parliamentary maneuvers, Gravel was able to block the bill for five months before President Richard Nixon and Senate Republicans agreed to allow the draft to expire in 1973.

[EFerrari]

1. You bet! Thanks to Gavel, my husband didn't go to Viet Nam

and I have two tall sons to thank him for!

[TheUniverse]

2. I was born in 1986.

But I will thank Mike Gravel for his service to this country. And keep telling the truth in the debates.

[Taverner]

3. If he hadn't filibustered the draft renewal, you might have been drafted

Had no one come forth to do the same before 86

[TheUniverse]

5. Maybe not in vietnam

But maybe the war would spread and have started off a large battle against communism. Maybe I would have gotten drafted in some obscure eastern European country. Thank God for the Peacemakers.

[HereSince1628]

4. Unfortunately, my draft number was too damn early and too damned low

to avoid doing something--my choice was to enlist in a non-combat MOS. I figured teletype and crypto gear and the rats that repaired them would always be in a nice safe place. And except for a few times when things went THUMP! in the middle of the night, we were.

[valerief]

6. Thank you, Mike Gravel! nt

[jgraz]

7. Thanks Mike. I wish you'd run for President in 1984

Before you went batcrap crazy.

[MLFerrell]

9. "Before you went batcrap crazy."

What makes you say that Gravel is crazy?

[hfojvt]

13. maybe because of his support of the UnFairTax

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/55

I don't think he's crazy though, just, apparently, really bad at math.

[jgraz]

14. Listen to his interview with Mike Malloy, if you can find it

He definitely seemed like he was off his meds that night. It was one of the strangest and most creepy interviews I've ever heard.

I'm still in favor of him staying in the race and I've sent him several donations. I just think that he would have had a real chance if he had run a bit earlier in his career.

[Bicoastal]

8. Thanks Mike, but the army wouldn't want me anyway...

...cause like most Americans, I'm too fat and stupid to fight.

I keed, I keed...

[Beaverhausen]

10. But I'm too fat and stupid to know any better

sorry, this guy is a jerk.

[Taverner]

18. How is Gravel a jerk?

[rateyes]

11. Thanks, Mike, for that and for managing to get

the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record.

[leftchick]

12. Mike is a true American hero!

thank You Mike!

:loveya:

[Left Is Write]

15. Well, because women still don't have to sign up for selective service...

it's doubtful I would have been drafted anyway.

[Parche]

16. Mike Gravel Rocks!!!

Dont take him for granite, he is clear road to our future :hi:

[BrotherBuzz]

17. Thanks for the effort, Gravel, but I was still drafted in 1972

Odd and lonely time to be drafted then, because there were only three draftees in my entire Basic Training Company. Odd, too, when during Basic Training, Nixon announced no more draftees would be sent to Vietnam. We three sighed a bit of relief, and started to realize the Army didn't have much interest in us anymore. We shipped East, and encountered all the boys shipping West. Odd times, back then being an AUS.

[Taverner]

19. How did that happen? I thought the draft ended that year...

[BrotherBuzz]

21. The draft ended in 1973

646 boys were drafted that year. Gravel's one-man filibuster must have kicked in after I got tagged in 1972 because I never met another draftee with less time in the service than myself. I was the last draftee to ETS from my Battalion, and got to see what the all-volunteer Army looked like in the early seventies; it wasn't pretty.

[ck4829]

20. K&R

[Richard Steele]

22. The man stood up and did some great things, just when this country needed them.

He also helped the effort to make the "Pentagon Papers" public knowledge.
He entered them into the Congressional Record when they were still
regarded as "classified information".

[Snotcicles]

23. It ended Jul 1 1973, 646 were inducted in 1973

My Lottery number in 1973 was 153.