An old hippy draft resister comments

VACARELLA: May 10th, two FBI agents showed up at my house and said I was identified throwing rocks, participating in a rally. And they said that I could have a lawyer if I wanted and if I didn’t want then I could do this interview. My father said I should have a lawyer. I said, “I have nothing to hide.” And all they wanted, they were just local FBI, from Niagara Falls, New York, they were from Buffalo, they just wanted, they were told to come and see me and find out if I knew any names. And I gave them all these nicknames. I never gave anybody’s name. And five days later, the 15th of May, I got my first draft notice. And it says, “Greetings from the President of the United States. You are hereby inducted, hereby ordered to report for induction.” O.K. That induction notice I took to my local draft board. My father grew up with the guy. He, as we all know they used to do, fixed it for two months. Two months later, I received my second draft notice. I burned that. I burned my card. I turned them into marijuana joints, huge marijuana joints with a bunch of other protestors. Believe me, I got in so much trouble for this. It was incredible.

I received my second draft notice, in, school started I think it was the 28th of September, if I’m not mistaken in those days. And I was enrolled again. And I received that second draft notice. We burned it like I said. We, lots of us burned it! We went to Washington, we marched on Washington. I marched any place I could. I attended every rally I could. I thought it was open warfare. And we really did.

The third one came in December to me to report in January. And I left for California. And I was on the lam for the next three years. And I wasn’t on the lam where I was hiding but I just didn’t have, I didn’t rent an apartment under my name, I didn’t have a phone under my name. So I just was sort of incognito, I thought I was anyway. And the FBI came to my house a second time, but I wasn’t there, I was gone. And they saw my father, my father recognized them and he said, “Come in, what can we do for you?” [FBI]: “Well, your son has left, he’s received three draft notices. Hasn’t reported either, not even one of the three. The first one had said that it was taken care of by the draft board, but that’s number three, number three. Now this is a federal offense.” And he said, “Well, I’m not real sure where he is.” And they said, “Well, we know where he is, we know exactly where he is.” So the next time I called my father, he says, “They know where you are!”

So then I started to move. I was on the move again. And I came back and joined a rock-n-roll band in 1971, '72, and we were going to record with Apple Records and didn’t hear a thing and we were really on the move. This band and I were on the move. And in the fall of 1973 Nixon was resigning, it was, all Watergate was broken loose. So it was plain that he was going to be impeached or he was going to resign.

And, in the paper, in the Buffalo Evening News, was my name, federal indictment. 125,000 men around the country were indicted for refusing to be drafted in the United States Army. And my name was in there. And so I went through a lot of hell for that. And I finally said, “Its got to be a lawyer. I got to do this right now. This really has to be the right way.” Went with a lawyer, went down. Nixon resigned. Ford came in. He gave us a partial amnesty. Partial amnesty included two years. You had two years of one of your three choices: the Army, CO work (conscientious objector), jail. Make your pick, you’re at the federal court in Buffalo, make your pick. You stand up with your lawyer. Which one do you want? We stood up and we said, “We’ll take the Army.” Boom! Five days later, I got my fourth draft notice, my fourth order, draft order. And the day before I went in, just to see, I’m not going in the Army now, of course, after the Kent State shootings. There’s no possible way I’m going to do this now. And I went in there and they said you know, “What are you doing here?” [Jim]: “Well, nothing.” And this guy said, I won’t mention his name, but boy he saved me, and he said, “Come back tomorrow, you come and see me.” So I did. He failed me on all, every single test. He said, “We want no one in the Army who doesn’t want to be here anymore. That’s over with. The draft is over. Since the lottery the draft was over. And we don’t want anybody who doesn’t want to be in.”

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6929/

Either way - it was something we all hated, because we knew we were on Uncle Sam's radar.

At the age of 18, every red-blooded, living, breathing American male had to present themselves to the offices of the Selective Service System a/k/a their local draft board for registration. Shortly thereafter, you received a Draft Card which had your Draft Status on it....and I hope I can remember all of them....at least the pertinent ones since there were some that were kind of obscure for ministerial students, people who were married with young children and the like. I-A meant you weren't doing anything all that important and if your Draft Board needed warm bodies to fill their quota you would would be among the first to get a letter in the mail from no less than "The President of the United States" that started out "Greetings...." You would then be instructed that on such-and-such a date, you would present yourself to the Armed Forces Induction Station where you would be poked and prodded, given psychological exams, IQ tests etc. etc. - usually dressed only in your underwear - to prove that you were, indeed suitable and fit to go to the jungles of Southeast Asia and kill Charlie a/k/a The Viet Cong and the regular Army of North Viet Nam. If you were lucky, at this point, they might find something wrong with you. If they found anything wrong with you, physically or mentally, you would be reclassified either I-Y which meant you had some sort of problem. In my case, it was chronic stomach spasms which got me the blessed I-Y and kept me home. If you were I-Y, you would only be drafted in the event of a worldwide cataclysmic event such as World War III. Otherwise, you were pretty safe and could lead a normal life. Or, you might be lucky enough to get a IV-F which meant you were physically or mentally screwed up - badly. Such things as blindness, deafness, missing limbs, being a paraplegic, would get you a IV-F. You could also get a IV-F for being under psychiatric care. A person classified IV-F never had to worry - they were safe no matter what. When I went for the first of 3 pre-induction physicals - yes, I was drafted 3 times before they decided they never wanted me - there was a blind guy, and a guy in a wheelchair who had both been selected for pre-induction physicals.

There was one other major category of deferment and that was the II-S which meant you were a college student with good grades and as long you maintained an average of 2.0 (later changed to 2.5 when they began to run out of manpower), you were safe. This was how I managed to get drafted 3 times before getting my coveted I-Y - too much partying, too much sex, drugs and rock and roll, and grades that were just a little bit higher than the guys at Delta Tau Chi in "Animal House," but not much!

One other way of avoiding the draft - like George W. Bush - was to be in the National Guard or Air Guard, but by 1966-67, the Guard units were full and only the privileged with connections - like Bush - were able to get into the Guard. There was a special classification for that as well, but I couldn't begin to tell you what it was.

So, that was the way it was until the late 1960's - early 1970's when they went to a lottery system. The lottery system was very simple - and yes, there were ways out of it - for a brief period of time. The way the lottery system worked was that every day of the year was written down on a piece of paper, ping pong ball, something and dumped into a large fishbowl. Then, they would start with Number 1 and pull a date. People who celebrated their birthday on that date could anticipate receiving one of those "Greetings" letters from the President very soon. The only way out was if you were in the middle of a school year - they at least had the decency to let you finish the semester - then it was off to be trained in the ways of becoming a killing machine, unless of course, you had taken off to Canada and sanctuary in the interim. However, if you had some college, by 1970, that was an automatic trip to Officer Candidate School where you would come out as a Second Lieutenant, skilled in the ways of warfare and ready to lead your own platoon into the jungles of Viet Nam. Before the lottery, you had to tell them you had been in college and after your basic training, they would ship you off to OCS. If you didn't tell them, you were just another grunt.

And, of course, the lottery went all the way to 365 - as a rule, anyone above 200 could figure they were pretty safe. As I recall, my number the first time they did it was something like 263, so even if I hadn't had my coveted I-Y, I would have been pretty safe. As to Canada, I knew a number of people who made that trip, and to the best of my knowledge, they are still there to this day.

Young people today don't realize how lucky they are not having the spectre of "The Draft" looming over them. One of the things which the lottery system did do was it equalized the draft to a certain extent, since prior to that, more minorities were drafted since they generally could not afford to go to college and would wind up in a non-essential job. That's why a larger percentage of Blacks were in Viet Nam than there were Caucasions - they couldn't afford to hide out in college or as George Bush did. What was sad about it was, the Black soldiers were over there fighting and dying and when they came back home, were still treated like crap and didn't enjoy nearly as many freedoms as the white guys did. So, the lottery tended to make everyone equal, even though some people were still more equal than others.

After Viet Nam, the military become all-volunteer, and the rest as they say is history.

Keli the Grey wrote:Ziggy, what war was worthy of your service?

ziggy wrote:

Keli the Grey wrote:Ziggy, what war was worthy of your service?

During my lifetime? None, in my opinion.

In history before 1945? The American revolution, maybe. WW II, maybe. The civil war, maybe. In the war(s) against native American Indians, yes, definately- on the side of the Indians.

So Keli, what wars were worthy of your service?

I think that you old hippies CYA in ex post facto basking in your bravery and intelligence as war protesters. However, that is what we fight to preserve--so go at it.

Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

ziggy wrote:

I think that you old hippies CYA in ex post facto basking in your bravery and intelligence as war protesters. However, that is what we fight to preserve--so go at it.

But you lost that war- and we won it. So save your smug pride for some other war on some other day.

The Warrior-in-Chief's concession statement is here:

http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/Johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/680331.asp

Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

VICTORY!

ziggy wrote:
VICTORY!

President Lyndon B. Johnson's Address to the Nation
Announcing Steps To Limit the War in Vietnam and
Reporting His Decision Not To Seek Reelection
March 31, 1968

Keli the Grey wrote:

ziggy wrote:

I think that you old hippies CYA in ex post facto basking in your bravery and intelligence as war protesters. However, that is what we fight to preserve--so go at it.

But you lost that war- and we won it. So save your smug pride for some other war on some other day.

The Warrior-in-Chief's concession statement is here:

http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/Johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/680331.asp

Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

VICTORY!

The vermin you hobnob with also said we lost in Iraq. You have no credibility.

Yeah, the draft dodgers is why LBJ didn't run again.

ziggy wrote:
How much credibility do Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush have?