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To: radar101

A very important point that these gentlemen need to raise was a particular lie that was promulgated by left-wing academia.

"Either you (the students) go out there and protest against the war, or I will fail you in class, you will lose your deferment, be drafted, shipped to Vietnam and die!"

This shows their direct complicity in the undermining of the US war effort, creating irrational fear in hundreds of thousands of young men, and agitating for violent and illegal activities.

To start with, out of a standing army of some 2,000,000, which means that in a decade perhaps 10,000,000 served; over the course of 10 years, the US lost some 56,000 men, slightly more than half from combat-related injuries. But for those 56,000, dying in Vietnam was a long chain of events, both involuntary and voluntary, that was hard to navigate.

To begin with, many of those who died were volunteers, who had specifically selected combat arms as their branch. Each one accepted meant one less draftee needed.

In Vietnam, the ratio of combat support and combat service support personnel to combat personnel was about 13-to-1. And while CS and CSS personnel were also killed, the combat branches suffered the vast majority of casualties.

In addition, personnel who re-enlisted often chose to remain with their units in Vietnam. Each individual who did so prevented someone new from joining his unit as a replacement. Some served three or more tours.

Not all combat units were stationed in "hot" combat zones. This meant that many combat personnel never experienced what they considered serious combat, just intermittent low-level terrorism type attacks.

The draft was also rife with deferments, both for service entirely, and for combat:

Conscientious objector for non-combatant duty.
Member of armed forces, Environmental Science Services, and Public Health Service.
Member of reserve component, ROTC, or Aviation Cadet.
Student deferment until the age of 20 or graduation.
Conscientious objector performing civilian work contributing to the maintenance of national health, safety, or interest, or who has completed such work.
Registrant qualified for military service only in time of war or national emergency.
Occupational deferment (other than agricultural and student).
Agricultural deferment.
Extreme hardship deferment, or registrant with a child.
Registrant with sufficient prior active service or who is a sole surviving son.
Official deferred by law.
Alien not currently liable for military service.
Minister of religion or divinity student.
Registrant not qualified for any military service.

(It was repeatedly noted by the left that Dick Cheney qualified for five different deferments during the war.)

And even if none of these deferments applied, the number of men entered into the draft lottery was far more than those who had their numbers selected.

"Some young men delayed registration until the year in which they turned 21, or even until just before turning 26. This method took advantage of the way the draft lottery worked.
A lottery based on birthdays determiner the order in which registered men were called up by Selective Service. The first to be called, in a sequence determined by the lottery, were men whose 20th birthday falls during that year, followed, if needed, by those aged 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25."

Between 250,000 and 2,000,000 men didn't even register with Selective Service during that the war.

These and other facts need to be published by veterans who felt betrayed by the left in America. If possible, those academics who sponsored efforts to terrify their students and coerce them to violent agitation, and their institutions, should be exposed for their radical and anti-American agendas.


6 posted on 12/23/2006 7:22:24 AM PST by Popocatapetl
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To: Popocatapetl
And also note that 2/3 of those who served in Vietnam were volunteers, vs. draftees, and that blacks and whites served in almost perfect proportion to their percentage of the population as a whole.

The average age in Vietnam was somewhat younger than in previous wars.

15 posted on 12/23/2006 8:57:57 AM PST by LS
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