Let's back up a bit here........Draft boards in general lived by a set of government regulations that it was there job to administer. There wasn't a lot of flex in the laws concerning the draft. It was there job to hear cases where CO status had been denied and make a decision which was within their province to do. CO status met certain guidelines however and virtually all CO's got their deferrment on the basis of religious principles. The fly in the ointment for some though was that a few had no religious principles and applied using a small loophole known as "ethics as religion." I have no idea how many did this or to what extent it worked but I can verify at least two.

The other situation was that if you came from a small place in a tiny county with few people as a friend of mine did, bucking the draft and the draft board was almost a comic opera! Quite literally in my friend's case, they didn't know what to do with him or his draft card which he'd sent back(more on that later). The folks on the draft board all knew him or his family and tried to negotiate with HIM to keep them from having to do what they didn't know how to do! He was a long time in finally being arrested and like some toward the end of the 60's, did no time at all. He certainly fouled their system up because they had no idea what to do at any level and failed to pass it on in a timely manner anyway.

The real resisters often cooperated with the draft board because how else could we make the statement we were trying to make? The thing that mattered was to not step forward and not take the oath. This forced them into taking the legal steps and eventually jailing you. To the degree you could be noticed, this was the way to do it. Burning your draft card was sillier than hell if you were really resisting the war because who knew??? If you cut it in half and burnt the edges and then sent it back with a letter explaining that you had decided "not to play," they had to do something. Even after that though, my draft board continued to send me legal notices that I was now 1-A and soon sent me a notice for my physical. In general, many draft boards preferred to look at some things as mistakes or tried not to take notice until they were forced to do so.

The physical wasn't the place to resist either and many resisters took physicals. As to Rick's question regarding ice cream and weight.....yes, that happened. But simple problems like weight forced you to keep coming in for weight checks on a regular basis which, if you were trying to just avoid the draft was probably okay by them. Other problems that you could create temporarily, like high blood pressure, simply was a bad idea because they kept you at the place for an additional 3-5 days and monitored your BP. I took a physical at the AFEES station in Louisville and passed, but some of the yahoos that were there on both sides were really amazing.

There was a guy who had ballooned up in weight, at least two who had high BP, and one asshole showed up in a dress! I don't know about the other ones, but the guy in the dress passed! There was also a guy in my group that had spent megabucks(or his family had) on surgeries to correct a problem with his eyes and he had done it because he wanted in the service! He had several letters from doctors with him, but when it was over, he still failed the physical because of his eyes. He would gladly have traded with the dude in the dress. Strange times.................

I guess the CO's as well as those who went to Canada and the resisters, all came in several sub-categories. The real CO's who actually believed in their religious principles were one group but also there were certainly those who "got religion" and a lot of letters and documentation from their pastors, priest, and rabbis to avoid service for whatever their reason was. Some went to Canada out of disgust/hatred/whatever for the situation while I think others went just to avoid the service. In the resister group there were those who were actively trying to foul the system and make a statement as well as those who felt that simply by not participating it was enough, regardless of whether they were actively prosecuted or not.

As to prison Rick..........I think it might have made a difference where they sent you. When I arrived at Petersburg there was already a large population of resisters there and though I heard about earlier abuses, I never really saw anything myself during that time. We were as a group looked down on by some of the general population there, while others seemed to figure we were just screwed up kids. There were also a few who would go out of their way to befriend you or at least help you to learn what you could and couldn't do...not because they were after something, but simply because they didn't like the war either and figured we were actually doing a good thing by being there. This was in early '69 and the goverment was already starting to bow to the pressure of too damn many kids in jail.....it was just too expensive and a no-win situation for them I think. as I said, I served only 6 months but when I got there the average was 18. within the first three months I was there the resistor population began to drop at an astounding rate and very few new people came in. I think that about a year after I was released there were only a few left and they had been charged with additional, often violent crimes. One of the guys was there on a 15 year sentence for participation with a Weather Underground bombing and the draft resistance had been just tagged on.

I'm tired of typing and tired of rehashing those times. It's important that we don't forget but equally important that we can all see what we did then whether it was serving in VietNam or serving time as choices made by American kids who were forced to see the world way too soon. Many who went came back and in retrospect wished they hadn't, but they should be and hopefully are proud of what they did. For those of us who came to a different realization, I hope that all of them are proud of the decisions they made at that time.

I have no regrets, no shame......I would do it again. But every war, every situation has to be judged on it's own merit. Korea was not WWII and VietNam was not WWII.....but WWII wasn't the same as WWI either. In every case though, the decisions always come down to young men, often too young to have to make such decisions. I'm all for a worldwide restriction on having anyone serve in any war until they are at least, oh, say 35 or so...........

Spaw