Letters to the Editor
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Info on Vietnam Era Draft
Students got deferments. High schoolers always were deferred. Undergradute college students had deferments right up through 1971, and then we got out of Vietnam. By 1973, draftees were being released before training.
Originally, graduate students were deferred, but that ended in 1968 (as I recall). Many of these guys you are discussing were just the right age to be affected by this change.
Clinton delayed a year or so, but he got out legitimately. The original draft was replaced by a lottery, and Clinton's lottery number was very high, so that he never would have been drafted.
I had the same situation a couple years later.
Cheney's story sounds relatively legitimate too. He went to school, and was deferred, and then he turned 26, and no longer was liable for the draft.
Here's the conclusion: After about 1965, almost nobody just joined up. Almost nobody went unless he had to go. I only can think of one person I knew who wanted to go.
The problem is that people such as Cheney are such murderous hypocrites. I fully understand why Cheney stayed away from the Vietnam War. But he is not allowed now to turn around and order Americans to their deaths in Iraq.
And W. Bush is even worse than Cheney.
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You can't spell taliesan without "lies"
"Further, the story was known in 2000 and didn't get much traction precisely because at the time, America was at peace and it didn't matter."
Bush was elected less than a month after al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole. We were at war at the time; it's just that Clinton ignored those who declared war on us.
"In 2004, the year of Rather's report, the issue mattered one heck of a lot, seen as America was in a war of choice at the time and a major issue in those elections was Kerry's war record. Bush was playing the strong-man and he was pretending to be something he was not, while Kerry was, to be frank about it, being slandered."
Kerry's war record was an issue because Kerry made it an issue. Twelve years after Bob Kerrey, a Vietnam veteran, told America that military service should not be an issue in a presidential election, John Kerry appeared before the Democrat National Convention, saluted, and said he was reporting for duty. He also brought his so-called "band of brothers" along for the ride.
John O'Neill, dedicated his anti-Kerry book, "Unfit for Command," to his wife. She was seriously ill at the time and died last year. Do you moonbats really believe that a man would dedicate a book of lies to his dying wife?
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Democrats not qualified?
timbuktom:
"I fully understand why Cheney stayed away from the Vietnam War. But he is not allowed now to turn around and order Americans to their deaths in Iraq."
Bill Clinton was a draft dodger, yet he deployed our military more than 40 times. Did you feel the same way during the 1990s?
And if not serving in the military precludes one from serving as commander in chief, none of the Democrat presidential candidates are qualified to be president.
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Look it up:
Clinton's draft lottery number was 314. He never would have been drafted. Are you old enough to remember how the draft used to work?
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No, let's ignore the hypocrisy
fnorple:
"I am always amazed how those with counter points of view tend to post distracting letters that don't address the central issue. They will post something like - hey, did you hear about OJ? - to get everyone off topic."
Translation: Let's stick to Bush's service because noting Clinton's, Blumenthal's, and Rather's lack of military service (or at least his lie about being a former Marine) exposes our gross hypocrisy on this issue. We moonbats cannot handle that.
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Proportional Font
I like to scan old photos for posterity. I even scanned an old newspaper clipping. I used Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to enhance the readability of the clipping. I could have used Courier font and faked an old typewriter font, or I could use a modern font.
If I wanted to preserve an old letter, I might do the same thing. I might even sign it so there wouldn't be any question about its authenticity.
If I really wanted to fake it, I'd use Courier and bake at 350 for five minutes, but if I were just preserving for posterity, I'd sign the new document even if it were formatted as Times New Roman or Helvitica.
Facts is facts and fakes is fakes, but anybody wanting to create a fake would have been more skilled. Creating fake documents was a skill I learned in the military. When the inspector says, "You've got to have a copy of the disposition form in this file or you fail the inspection," and no copy exists, well, a copy starts existing.
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Can't spell "taliesan" without "lies"
"I think you have not served a single minute the military I think you are lying about your service and I think that the reason you are so upset about this story is because it strikes a very personal nerve."
I called you a liar because you lie. This is your latest. I was a Marine Corps 0231 who served at 1st Marine Air Wing headquarters on Camp Butler (Okinawa). I later served with Marine Aircraft Group 36 on Camp Futenma.
You losers who never had the courage to serve sure have a thing about attacking others, such as Bush, who did serve.
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Groenhagen
I caught you out in a lie when you claimed 9/11 as a justification for the Iraq war. You have repeatedly called me a liar with nothing but bullshit to back you up.
I repeat that I think you are a liar, and that you are lying about your military service. I think you feel threatened by this story about Bush because it could just as well be about you.
And I think you are trying to bring up past wrongs, which were not terribly important at the time, to excuse current ones. I think you are a hypocrite.
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Timbuktom,
you write: Cheney's story sounds relatively legitimate too. He went to school, and was deferred, and then he turned 26, and no longer was liable for the draft.
Actually, no. Cheney received student deferments - until they ran out. Nine months and two days after he was notified that he had to report for service, his first child was born - and he applied, and received, a deferment based on being a father.
One of my uncles volunteered in 1969 when he was 27 years old. He was Special Forces, and I know that he was in Cambodia and other places we were not supposed to be. He now lives in what was my grandparents house. I was home last year, and we were going through some old family photos when we came across a bunch of his medals, including his Combat Infranty Badge. He still won't talk about it except to say that he is still bitter about that war.