I don't agree with that reasoning.
What did his being there in Vietnam count for? Serving in a senseless, unjust war (aren't they all), and by his presence perpetuating the situation.
Personally I think it was his moral duty not to go.

I hasten to add that I probably wouldn't have had the guts or conviction to go against the current either but that to me was his clear duty.
I'm also talking with the luxury of 20/20 hindsight but then again, so are you.

I'm not saying I don't understand why most of the grunts went, and I don't condemn them for it but I don't see how with all that we know, that them being there 'counted for something'.
I think you are a bit enamoured by the notion of the bravery and camaraderie and nobility of war Carbimero.
But when I think of war, all I think of are all the dead and damaged psyches on both sides of the conflict. No-one emerges from a war victorious.

Let me just state again my admiration for Dearlenbaugh's brutal, uncompromising honesty.

When I was a young man, there was still conscription in Netherlands and I considered being a conscientious objector but I managed to weasel my way out of it on a technicality.
It was the easy way out for me not to compromise my ethics but I didn't take a moral stand and I don't know if I would've stood up if push came to shove.
Btw if you refused to be conscripted, it was no really big thing. You didn't have to go to jail or anything, merely fulfil an alternative conscription, working in a nursing home or something like that. Of course, it didn't look good on your record.