Posted on 07/07/2006 12:00:44 PM PDT by siddude
CASTLEGAR, British Columbia -- For Craig Wiester of Minneapolis, fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam war meant losing a country, a way of life - and his father.
"He felt it was a man's duty to go when his country called," Wiester said Thursday at the opening of a four-day reunion and peace event to honor U.S. draft resisters who fled to Canada and the Canadians who assisted them.
Organizers were expecting hundreds of draft resisters and their Canadian supporters to attend the gathering, which includes workshops and panel discussions at Selkirk College and the nearby Brilliant Cultural Center in this town about 120 miles north of Spokane, Wash.
Speakers and participants include former U.S. Sen. George McGovern, 83, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972 who lost to Richard Nixon; former California state Sen. Tom Hayden, an anti-war student activist during the 1960s; and Arun Ghandi, grandson of Mahatma Ghandi.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...
Gawd, that's a beautiful bit of work!
"I cant imagine taking their kids to this cowards convention. "
This is probably the sole occassion in which an adult child would have
just cause to "dump" his senior citizen parent.
Right where they belong...OUT of the USA.
There was, and it was led by the Left, and they continued to agitate even after the war started. The Left suddenly became hawks when Hitler attacked former ally, the USSR.
Saw a bumper sticker
"If draft dodgers have reunions
What do they talk about?"
Well, now I know.
(spits, then walks away)
The "antiwar" movement pre-WWII was in fact mostly populated by conservatives -- just look up the history of the "America Firsters". The interventionists were more likely to be allied with FDR. Similar with WWI, Wilson was eager to jump in, most Republicans were not (except for T. Roosevelt, who was pretty anomalous among Republicans back then).
The far-lefties back in the 1930s were, starting with the Spanish Civil War, very enthusiastic about fighting Germany, Italy and Franco -- basically because they were viewed as a threat to Communism.
Oh, and Mr. Craig Wiester, if you read this post, and are upset about it, then sign up and FReep mail me. I'll be happy to meet you somewhere.
5.56mm
I think you're right. The draft dodgers' primary objective was to avoid serving. In their minds, some other "sucker" would defend freedom. But they will take the shame of being draft dodgers to their graves.
It's significant that now we have an all-volunteer military fighting for our safety and freedom. These volunteers, not the media polls, reflect the true opinions of most Americans.
How will you fare, sonny, how will you fare
In the far-off winter night,
When you sit by the fire in an old man's chair
And your neighbours talk of the fight?
Will you slink away, as it were from a blow,
Your old head shamed and bent?
Or say - I was not with the first to go,
But I went, thank God, I went?
Harold Begbie - 1914
I love that area. I lived near Castlegar from 1974-84. It's where I learned to fly and owned some businesses, and where our kids were born. I'd move back in a minute if there were a market for buffoons there.
Well, now that I think of it - and having read this article - maybe it's just that there's no more room for buffoons.
Too bad. I loved it there.
Cheers,
Jim
"The earliest important anti-war organization, the Keep America Out of War Congress, had been created in 1938 by Socialist Norman Thomas with the help of liberals like John T. Flynn, Oswald Garrison Villard, the former editor of the Nation, and Harry Elmer Barnes, revisionist historian of the First World War.[9] Anti-war organizations on American campuses were similarly led by liberals, Socialists and Communists.
The odds of being drafted, being sent to Vietnam, and dying were miniscule. First of all, only a fraction of those eligible for the draft were drafted. Of those drafted, in the Army, only 1 in 13 went into a combat branch, the remainder were combat support and combat service support. Generally in the Air Force and Navy, only pilots were at risk.
But most draftees did not go to Vietnam. They stayed in the US, or went to Europe or Japan. At its peak, only 30% of military personnel were overseas anywhere.
This left a pool of 1 in 13 soldiers and Marines who were the ones supposed to do the fighting. Of those, many were not sent to "hot" or even "medium" combat areas. Certainly there were CS and CSS people who were involved in fighting, but this was infrequent and often just terrorist attacks.
Combat units involved in combat had a limited number of slots available. Any serviceman who wanted to remain with his unit and extend his tour got priority over someone who could have taken his place. Many soldiers and Marines served multiple tours in Vietnam.
In total, in 10 years the US had 52,000 killed. For the first time in history in a major war, just slightly more than 50% were killed in action, rather than died of disease. So 26,000, or an average of 2,600 a year were killed by enemy action or friendly fire.
All told, the propaganda spouted by the MSM and academia at the time was that if young men lost their exemptions, they would be drafted, sent to Vietnam, and die. They succeeded in terrifying the baby boom generation that all was lost unless they actively ended the Vietnam war and abandoned the Vietnamese to communist occupation.
This being said, the Cowards in Canada can also claim that they were also foolish enough to believe the propaganda, so they must also bear the burden of being scorned for their gullibility.
They have no honor, no real country, and deserve no respect.
Will
WINDY SHEEEEEEHAM
be there handing out sugar tits and Kleenex?
Lunch and a Dinner are included.
You gotta wonder; in planning the food, did someone say, "It would probably be best if we left "Chicken" off the menu, eh?"
http://www.ourwayhomereunion.com/program.php
Definitely a "1914 vintage" poem -- can't picture that being written in 1918...
"The "antiwar" movement pre-WWII was in fact mostly populated by conservatives -- just look up the history of the "America Firsters". "
One of Buchanan's books claims we should/could have stayed out of WWII. But he usually works in the realm of idealogical and hypothetical, and with perfect retrospect of it being decades ago, with all the details now known so they can be questioned, turned about.
Shocking, no?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
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