deejayway wrote:
And I too feel that the conscientious objectors - not the draft dodgers who got daddy to keep them at college - but the folks who went to jail or fled to Canada for their beliefs, were the true heroes of the Vietnam conflict.

After three aimless years in college, I dropped out. Within two months I was drafted and at age 21 found myself serving in the U.S. Infantry in Vietnam.

Why? Because two short years of conscripted service, if I survived, seemed preferable to the three other options:

- Possibly spending the rest of my life hiding out from the authorities here in the U.S.
- Running to Canada, again possibly staying for all my remaining years.
(Either of these would cut me off from family, friends, and essentially the entire life I'd known to that time)
- And the most onerous: Going to prison, then upon release, facing the same two years in the military.

Ultimately, I made the right choice. Despite many close calls, I made it through training accidents and 12 months in the jungle with no lasting physical injuries. And despite being an over-protected, under-experienced child, actually, I came out mentally and emotionally intact. I must add that this was due to good fortune, with little or no credit to myself as a person.

Having made it through unscathed, I found I had gambled and won - but it was a coward's bet. Although I opposed the War, the Draft, and Congress' ability to coerce a citizen into involuntary servitude, sending him off to death or dismemberment for reasons other than protecting his country, I did nothing to resist. I took the simplest route of going along with the system without protest, because, of the options outlined above, it was the easiest course to take.