History Is Necessary - Blog Posts

Nevermind the rather huge amounts of social pressure to comply with a draft notice (prison sentences, loss of benefits, good luck finding a job outside a few major metropolitan areas). Or the fact that everyone who fled the country to avoid the draft had no way of knowing Carter would pardon them, so basically had signed up to never set foot on American soil ever again. Or messing around with your draft status had an immediate and really bad effect on immigration proceedings of you and your family.

So if you did have the resources available to dodge the draft, do you think the Pentagon just reduced the number of inductees by one? No, they simply found a poor person, usually of color, that lacked those resources to take your place.

Engraved Zippo lighters from the Vietnam War.

~ Cowan’s Auctions