The Cowerding of America - Vietnam

 The first signs I saw of America no longer being the land of the free and the brave was with the onset of Vietnam.  We engaged in a “CONFLICT” not a war and it was never classified as a war.  I would like to add in this conflict (not war) the U.S. Marine Corps lost five times as many dead as in World War I, three times as many dead as in Korea, and more total killed and wounded than in all of World War II.  We sent young men to die and those men did not even know what they were fighting for.  We did know that we did not have the full support of the U.S. Government or the American people.  

We followed orders while celebrities like Jane Fonda called us murders.  Our President Johnson was caught between a rock and a hard place.  He did not want to be the first American President to lose a war (conflict) and yet he did not want the American citizens to turn against him and the Democrat Party.  Our troops were asked to fight in a war which our political leaders in Washington would not let us win. 

Draft evasion (dodging) became vogue.  It was more popular to be a coward than to be loyal to the United States Military or the United States Government.  Draft dodgers were usually college-educated sons of the middle class who could no longer defer induction into the Selective Service System - PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON.  Deserters, on the other hand, were predominantly sons of the lower-income and working classes who had been inducted into the armed services directly from high school or who had volunteered, hoping to obtain a skill and broaden their limited horizons.  Then you had the TRUMPS, BUSH, and other wealthy families with influence who kept their boys out of harm ways.  Let us not forget two other prominent draft dodgers Joe Biden and Dick Cheney.

Starting in 1965, Canada became a choice haven for American draft dodgers and deserters. They were not formally classified as refugees, but as immigrants, there is no official estimate of how many draft dodgers and deserters were admitted to Canada during the Vietnam War. One informed estimate puts their number between 30,000 and 40,000.  Whether or not this estimate is accurate, the fact remains that emigration from the United States was high as long as America was involved in the war and maintained compulsory military service; in 1971 and 1972 Canada received more immigrants from the United States than from any other country.

There were more than 300,000 deserters and draft evaders in total, in which 209,517 men illegally resisted the draft while some 100,000 deserted. 

We do know that it was the largest number of Americans to leave the country to avoid supporting the United States since the American Revolution.  Draft dodging was so popular that books were written on how to do it.  In 1977 on his first day in office President Jimmy Carter pardon the draft dodgers. It is estimated half of them living in Canada returned to the United States with smiles on their faces, while many families stood over graves of their young boys killed in Vietnam crying.

Distinct from draft resisters, there were also deserters of the American forces who also made their way to Canada.  The deserters have not been pardoned and may still face pro forma arrest, as the case of Allen Abney demonstrated in March 2006.  Another similar case was that of Richard Allen Shields: He had deserted the U.S. Army in Alaska in 1972 after serving a year in Vietnam. Twenty-eight years later, on March 22, 2000, while he attempted to drive a lumber truck across the US-Canada border (in Metaline Falls, Washington) he was arrested by U.S. Customs agents and jailed at Fort Sill.  He was discharged from the Army with an Other Than Honorable discharge in April 2000. Not harsh enough in my opinion.  

There were some legal ways to avoid the draft.  Men who had physical or mental problems, men who were married, with children (ended in 1965), attending college or needed at home to support their families might be granted deferments.  Homosexual were exempt and a large number of heterosexual boys claimed to be homosexual to be exempt, while many homosexual hid their sexuality and served proudly with distinction.  It should be said two thirds of the men who fought in Vietnam volunteered for service.  Seventy-three percent of the men that died in Vietnam were volunteers.  

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, young people were referred to as the “Love Generation,” partly because of their insistence on sexual freedom, drugs, hippie lifestyle which they proposed as an alternative (“make love, not war”) to the Vietnam conflict.  I cannot help but refer to them as the loser generation and I am a product of the 60’s.  I credit them with contributing to the downfall of America.  Their goal was to change society and they did.  We have not recovered from what they started.  America slowly became a nation of whimpering slaves to FEAR—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts and fear of North Korea, China, Russia, Middle East and Muslims in general.

                                                            

 Attorney General Holder said, America ' has become a nation of cowards' on race.  This is one of the rare occasions I agreed with him, but we have become a nation of cowards not just on race, but on just about everything and his boss President Obama was the biggest coward of all.  John McCain’s economic adviser Phil Gramm said that this country is a “nation of whiners”.  But, please do not blame today’s ills on the 55,000 Baby Boomers who died in Vietnam! 

There was little to no stigma attached to draft dodgers in the 60’s and there is little to no stigma attached to millennials today.  It seems to be a generational thing where there's no stigma attached to being irresponsible.  Millennials delay getting jobs, their own place to live, in general delay growing up in order to delay responsibilities.  Just as the 60’s love children contributed to the decline of society so will the millennials living in mommy's and daddy's basement.   Some of these parents really don't want their kids to leave because they fear they cannot take care of themselves.  A friend told me a few months ago their 30 year old son cannot move out because he has to pay back his student loans and ask me, “Why are they making him pay it back?  It is so unfair”.  She was a love child!  Every failed generation wants someone to blame.

The media during the Vietnam era and the media today are destroying our nation.  The media defines those that want to serve our country as loser, not heroes.  Regardless of what the gutless media says my heroes are the young men and women who face the issues of war and possible death, and then weigh those concerns against obligations to their country, simple obedience to duty, as they understand it and are willing to suffer loneliness, disease, wounds and the ultimate price death.  Some in media are making cowards of our people! 

I love our America, but I will criticize us and not stand by QUIETLY and watch us become a ‘ONCE UPON A TIME GREAT NATION’.  Many students have told me that they are the most well-informed generation in history; really those same students could name all five Simpson family members, but could not name four of the five freedoms in the First Amendment!  Ignorance breeds cowards! 

I pray that the thousands of Americans in uniform around the word are not paying attention to the current cycle of news stories in Washington coming out of the Democrats and die heart liberals that are upset that President Trump ordered hitting a Syrian Airbase for using chemical weapons against their own people. It must be demoralizing to see the rest of us acting like such cowards—and making things more dangerous for them.  I know it was for us who served in Vietnam.  Have we forgotten the vows we made when the Twin Towers fell, and the Pentagon burned? That we would do what it takes to avenge our dead?