Trump on Vietnam and his (lack of) Military Service

[Dill]

(06-07-2019, 05:55 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Of course, there were several ways to get out of it. If you were poor, you dodged the draft and moved to Canada. If you were rich, you could get a college deferment (but you still had to be in ROTC at most colleges), you could get a position in the National Guard like Bush Jr., or you could just pay a doctor to say you had a questionable medical condition and get a pass.

You forgot "get captured." That was one way to get out of the Vietnam war. As I understand it, some prisoners were even put up in a hotel for years. It was part of the Hilton chain; check out some of the rooms; they probably room service too. 
https://www.expedia.com/Hanoi-Hotels-Hilton-Hanoi-Opera.h533315.Hotel-Information
https://hiltongardeninn3.hilton.com/en/hotels/vietnam/hilton-garden-inn-hanoi-HANOPGI/accommodations/index.html

I guarantee you that if if Trump HAD gone to Vietnam and fought, he would not have taken the loser's way out.  

(06-07-2019, 05:55 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Really the only thing people hate about draft dodgers is that they were poor and didn't want to go. If you were rich and didn't want to go, it had no impact on your future whatsoever. Heck, you could even grow up and become President.

  Some people avoided military service because they wanted to get on with jobs and the like. But many had moral objections to the war, and they were ready to pay the required price. Back in the '90s, one of the other soccer parents on my son's team had been a conscientious objector who was drafted and ended up spending two years in jail back in the '70s. Not sure I'd have the courage to do that, even though I objected to that war on moral grounds. If enough had done what he did, the war would have ended sooner with more lives saved.

I am not a true conscientious objector, though. I am fine with a war against Al Qaeda in A-stan to defend the US, but not with a war in Iraq to start off a New American Century.