Posted on 09/04/2008 7:04:38 AM PDT by Sergeant Tim
Click on image for the actual September 2, 2008, front page
After seven years of initial eligibility, Joseph Biden was removed from the military draft pool just when it was most likely he would be drafted and sent into the Vietnam War. The American death toll was rising rapidly -- 11,153 in 1967. Thousands more had died since the Tet offensive began in January, 296,000 men ages 19 through 25 would be drafted during 1968, Joseph Biden had run out of college deferments, and he would not be safe until November 20, 1968, his twenty-sixth birthday.
During the Democrat Party convention, Joseph Biden was spoken of in glowing terms on the pages of the New York Times on August 28, 2008:
As Democrats often do, [at the convention, Biden] paid tribute to Mr. McCain’s military service and his more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. That is not sufficient qualification for the presidency, Mr. Biden said in as direct a way as any Democrat this year has. “The choice in this election is clear,” Mr. Biden said. “These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader,” he said, a leader who can deliver “the change that everybody knows we need.” ... The self-described “kid from Scranton” paid a moving tribute to his 90-year-old mother, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden. He said she had taught him honor, loyalty and bravery. She also helped him overcome his stuttering, telling him, as he put it, “it was because I was so bright I couldn’t get the thoughts out quickly enough.”
Despite two runs for President, in 1988 and 2008, and 36 years in Congress, Senator Biden's 1-Y reclassification has never appeared in the Times, to include this Associated Press report from August 31, 2008:
Officials with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's campaign released Biden's Selective Service records at the request of The Associated Press. Less detailed records were available from a National Archives facility in Philadelphia [emphasis added mine].According to the documents, Biden, 65, received several deferments while he was an undergraduate at the University of Delaware and later as a law student at Syracuse University. A month after undergoing a physical exam in April 1968, Biden received a Selective Service classification of 1-Y, meaning he was available for service only in the event of national emergency.
"As a result of a physical exam on April 5, 1968, Joe Biden was classified 1-Y and disqualified from service because of asthma as a teenager," said David Wade, a campaign spokesman.
In "Promises to Keep," a memoir that was published last year and became an instant best-seller after he was tapped as Obama's running mate, Biden never mentions his asthma, recounting an active childhood, work as a lifeguard and football exploits in high school.
Along with some other leading Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pointed out Vice President Richard Cheney's five draft deferments during the Vietnam War yet never mentioned those of Senator Biden.
The details of his April 5, 1968 medical examination -- to include who examined Biden and sent the 1-Y reclassification card to his draft board -- remain undetermined by the mainstream media.
Senator John McCain and Senator Biden are touted for their foreign policy experience that Senator Barack Obama and Governor Sarah Palin are said to lack.
The difference is John McCain entered the Naval Academy in 1955, served in Vietnam, spent 5 1/2 years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton, and retired from the United States Navy in 1982. Neither Barack Obama nor Joseph Biden have served in the military. Sarah Palin "merely" served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard.
Apparently, Congressman Pelosi and the New York Times do not want the American people to know that Joseph Biden may have dodged the draft during Vietnam.
Hey, maybe Senator Biden will even grace us with a calm, impromptu press conference to answer a few questions from the unbiased mainstream media. /s
Mark Levin ping! (TGO and I spoke on air about this Tuesday evening.)
“I have not yet begun to fight!, Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead!” - Joe Biden
“The Dumbest Man In The Senate”(in the words of F.Lee Levin)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My uncle, about 5 years older than me, died during Tet. With such a small age difference between us, my uncle was a childhood “guide.” He took us fishing...the young teen with his younger nephews. I’ve traveled to D.C. for the sole purpose of finding his name on The Wall. RIP, Uncle. W.
It does appear to me that Biden played games with the system.
I didn’t support him anyway, but if it’s possible, I support him even less.
There is a boatload of evidence of Biden wrongdoing, bad decisions, and slimy friends (just as there is on Obama)...
Yet notice how the MSM driveby media sits on all of those mounds, and goes full speed ahead on unsubstantiated rumors and trash on Palin.
AS I have posted before - Palin’s position as the VP candidate has shown, without a doubt, the very real bias and corruption of the MSM.
But are the voting Americans paying attention?
I have to differ with Mr. Levin on this.
Until John Warner actually retires and is no longer a senator, HE is the dumbest man in the Senate.
Mr. Biden may only take that mantle once Mr. Warner is gone.
(Biden then went on to say..."The only thing we have to fear is fear itself")
My humble thanks to your uncle...
We have a ‘Wall that heals’ here. Please Freep mail me his name and I will look for him the next time I am visit there.
Medical and college deferments are not draft dodging.
Going to Canada, not reporting, leaving the country, hiding.......are draft dodging.
I have mixed feelings on this one. It is fair to take the media to task for playing up Cheney’s deferment while ignoring Biden’s deferment. But as someone who has no problem with Cheney’s deferment, Rush Limbaugh’s medical deferment, or President Bush’s military record, I would be doing the same thing as the lame stream media were I to question Biden’s medical deferment.
Bump
I certainly have no animus toward Biden's mother, but she failed to teach him a single one of those qualities.
Fake medical deferments ARE draft dodging . During the Vietnam War there were many doctors in Philadelphia that would purposely puncture your eardrum to enable you to get a medical deferment . Some were supposedly on the staff at the University of Pennsylvania .
I agree, Tim. Thanks to all those American heroes that the likes of Kerry and Biden have trod upon.
It’s largely because of my uncle that I joined the Army out of high school in 1970. After that first tour, I went to college, then seminary, and then back in as a chaplain, eventually to retire.
According to the Veteran’s Administration, 9.2 million served in the military between 1964 and 1975. Nearly 3.5 million served in the Vietnam theater of operations. From a pool of approximately 27 million, the draft raised 2,215,000 men for military service during the Vietnam era. It has also been credited with “encouraging” many of the 8.7 million “volunteers” to join rather than risk being drafted. Of the nearly 16 million not engaged in active military service, 96% were exempted (typically because of jobs including other military service), deferred (usually for educational reasons), or disqualified (usually for physical and mental deficiencies but also for criminal records to include draft violations). Draft offenders in the last category numbered nearly 500,000 but less than 10,000 were convicted or imprisoned for draft violations. Finally, as many as 100,000 draft eligible males fled the country.
Perhaps 'offenders' is a bit more PC but back in the day - which was also my day - that is not what they were called. What is interesting to me is the lib media's and politician's willingness to judge Cheney, despite his heart murmur, and say nothing about Biden.
Look again at what Senator Biden says his mother taught him.
Silvie has the distinct honor of the title of “Media Slut”.
Not sure what the counterpart is for you but you definitely qualify. hehehe...
I think each deferrment needs to be looked at on its own merits. They truly are not all the same. I lived through that era, joined in 1970, and I get a gut feel when I read some of the backgrounds on deferrments.
This one sounds hokey. After multiple educational deferrments another deferrment for asthma for an athlete. The year is 1968. I’m telling you that my bullshit meter is pegged all the way into the red.
Oh for God's sake. Dick Cheney, Phil Graham, Rudy Giluiani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich; do we really want to pissing contest over our draft dodgers vs. their draft dodgers?
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