Page 161 - Stand Down Vietnam

PROTESTORS AND DRAFT DODGERS

When I was a teenager and the protesters were out doing
their thing, my view was “Look at those people, they’re
just out having fun finding ways to avoid the draft.
They don't really understand; how could they
understand?” The smartest people out there don't
understand it. We had Walter Cronkite and the Huntley-

Brinkley boys and everyone asking what's going on.

The hippies and protestors seemed to have the answer,
but they were just young kids, how could they have the
answer? I didn't dislike them, but I disbelieved them;
in other words, they didn't have a basis for what they
were saying, they were reading the newspapers and
magazines, listening to the radio, and watching TV.

They were doing the same thing I was doing; trying to
form opinions. It was okay with me that they were
forming their opinions, but they had no business trying
to persuade me.

It wasn't until I entered the military that I began to
have definite opinions about the draft dodgers. I’ll
admit, when I was 17 and a senior in high school and
some of the stuff was going on, I had people telling me
to go to Canada. I thought about going. It would be a
lie to say otherwise. I thought about it, in the end,

it came down to what am I supposed to do if my name is
called? I'll go to Vietnam.

Later when draft dodgers were “welcomed home” and the
way they were welcomed home; I thought, it was an
insult to the ones that did serve. That's a question
that’s never going to be able to be satisfactorily
answered.