Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Military Service options in 1964, redux

Larry Pressler, whom I don't know and whose writings I'm not familiar with, had an excellent op ed piece in the New York Times this morning. The setting, of course, is the not-uncommon phenomenon of someone, years after the war in question, embellishing their war record -- in this case, the Attorney General and candidate for Senate from my home state, where the Dirt Road is located.

Pressler's point is that draft evasion became a high art during the Vietnam conflict. It indeed was. I personally was against the war, took deferments to finish college and grad school, and then, suddenly, was 1-A -- in other words, all set to go. It occurred to me that people today probably have the illusion that things back then were binary -- either you were in the Army and went to Vietnam and "fought" or else you were a profound slacker.

It was nowhere near that simple. At that time there were lots of options. Here are the ones that occur to me, in considering my own situation. I am sure there were many more for people who were otherwise situated, but this is a start:

--You could keep getting student deferments until you were over 26 (seems to me that once you were past this ripe old age, your draft board would call you only in a dire emergency). I did get invited to continue for a PhD, but by that time I was sick of school and eager to get on with life.

--You could flee to Canada (I did not seriously consider this option, but I did know a few people who did).

--You could join the clergy (one denomination was actively courting me to do this, but I cannot say I seriously considered it) and get a clergy deferment.

--You could qualify as a Conscientious Objector (there were several gradations of this, most of which meant you still had to serve but were not going to be able to tell any war stories later on and would be branded forever as a coward -- up to an ultimate level of conscientious objection that resulted in the decision to spend one's military service time in jail). You had to be pretty credibly against war in all forms and have been so for a long time in order to become a certified CO, and I didn't have the track record -- nor the belief structure -- to claim this, although I knew people who did and did.)

--You could (if you could find a unit that would take you) join the Reserves or National Guard. I did investigate this option, since what it entailed was six months on active duty for training, and then six years of monthly meetings, plus two weeks of training each summer, and virtually no chance of sustained active duty or deployment. Those were the days when the Reserves and the Guard were essentially the militia, not the kinds of outfits that actually served in war overseas. There was the unspoken promise that the only time the Reserves would get activated was if there was a major land war, a la World War II, and while the National Guard might also get activated to help with a natural disaster, they were still pretty much citizen soldiers. There were two downsides here. The first was that you were stuck with monthly meetings for what seemed to be an eternity, and furthermore your summer was shot, so to speak, at training camp. The second was more subtle: you would never get to tell war stories.

--You could be physically or mentally deficient (or you could fake or self-induce a condition that would make you 1-Y (which meant you would be drafted only in a real national emergency) or even 4-F (which meant you could never be drafted). I was superstitious enough that I didn't pursue this -- although, again, there was plenty of advice around about how to do it. Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" is substantially about this route.

--You could let nature take its course. That meant either volunteering for the draft (which put you at the top of your local draft board's list to go the next time they got a levy) or just killing time until they got around to calling you -- or not. Since I had discovered in grad school that nobody was hiring people who were draft-eligible (although all the big companies wanted you to come back to see them once you got out), I killed time initially, and finally, after talking to a whole bunch of people about my options, volunteered for the draft. The draft was a two year active duty commitment followed by four more years in the Reserves -- but generally the inactive Reserves, which meant that you only had to go to meetings or training if you wanted the extra money.

--You could have planned ahead to serve, gone to one of the military academies or been in ROTC, or gone to medical school, and served as an officer. This was a four or six year active duty commitment, often with subsequent time in the Reserves. I knew people who did this, lots of them.

--You could have enlisted in the Regular Army as an enlisted man. This was a minimum three year active duty commitment, with four years if you wanted to enlist for anything attractive. This was a non-starter for me; I simply lacked the dedication that led my father to join the Regular Army in World War I.

--You could have gotten married and bred. (I put this last because as a 22 year old guy just as the sexual revolution was kicking into high gear, this was automatically the least desirable alternative.)

Anyway, that's the list as I can remember it. There were all kinds of subsequent ramifications and alternatives (including enlisting and then deserting -- knew one guy who did that, and going ROTC and becoming a CO when levvied for Vietnam -- and I knew one guy who did that, too).

One last point: because you were drafted or on active military duty via some other door did NOT mean that it was certain that you would ever get anywhere near Vietnam, and even if you got there, that you would ever go on a combat patrol or exchange gunfire with anyone.

The US at the time still maintained a huge force in Europe, and from my basic training company, probably 40% were sent there for the remainder of their hitch. Since civilianization and outsourcing of the military's support functions had not yet begun, there were a huge number of roles for soldiers in the continental United States that had nothing to do with combat. In fact, I remember hearing the statistic (true or false) that only 10% of the active Army in 1965 was really apt to be involved in combat operations in any way.

More later on this, but I thought that this might be interesting information for those tempted to see the whole Blumenthal thing as binary.