From: session@seq.uncwil.edu (Zack C. Sessions)
Subject: Re: Clinton, draft dodger. YUP!
Organization: Univ. of North Carolina @ Wilmington
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 01:29:32 GMT

bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken) writes:

>>Even after you receive a draft notice, you are free to do anything you
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>legally can do before the induction date to keep out of serving in the
  ^^^^^^^
>>Army. Case in point, my brother received his draft notice in 1967. But
>>before his induction date came up, he had enlisted in the Naval Reserves.
>>This is no different that Clinton making arrangements to be in a ROTC
>>program.
>
>At least your brother did some sort of service.  Clinton did none.

Why did I know someone in this newsgroup would respond in this manner? <sigh>
If my brother could have done what Clinton did, he would have done so in a
skinny minute, and would have been perfectly within his legal rights, and
would have not done anything remotely considered as evading any committment.

>Any dictionary will likely have a definition of the word ``dodge'' like:
>
>	To evade a responsibility or duty, esp. by deceit or trickery.
>
>It is clear that Clinton manipulated the system to avoid serving
>in Vietnam but still cynically trying to maintain his political
>viability.  This is draft dodging.  I don't recall any of his
>critics ever saying that what he did was illegal, just highly
>uncivic and something that should disqualify a candidate for
>Commander in Chief.

Sorry, your assertions are not clear to me. Clinton did not manipulate
anything. He did not want to go to Vietnam (like hundreds of thousands
of others). He signed up for ROTC which exempted him from having to report.
Later he decided not to take part in ROTC and had his name put back in
the draft roles weeks BEFORE the draft lottery took place. He was taking
his chances with the lottery like many of US (yes, I was also subject to
the very same lottery) were. He was lucky on the lottery. So was I.

No, Clinton did not dodge the draft as nothing he did could remotely be
considered as deceit or trickery. "Uncivic"? Give me a break! He opposed
the war in Vietnam. How does that make him any less of an American? How
does than make him any less patriotic? The whole draft dodging issue is
merely another smokescreen invoked because the re-election campaign has
no positive issues of any accomplishements by Bush that they can run on.
That is why they attack Clinton's "war record". That is why they attack
Clinton's "record as Governor". That's why they attack his wife.

>Maybe your brother dodged the draft to avoid going to 'Nam, too;
>I don't know why he chose to sign up for the Naval Reserves
>when he did.

Your dran straight he going the Naval Reserves to avoid the draft. Keyword
here is AVOID, and not DODGE. When one enlists in the Naval Reserves,
one knows what their specialty will be, and his specialty, Dental Technician,
was rarely used in Vietnam. In fact, he spent his entire two year stint of
active duty 3 hours down the coast at the Charleston Naval Base.

If you want a real example of deceit and trickery, you needn't look any
further than Danny Boy, who is but one heartbeat from the Commander in
Cheif job. How did he avoid the draft? There are certain types of National
Guard Units, by their very nature, which are virtually guarenteed to never
have to serve overseas. The unit Quayle wanted to enlist was one such unit,
but the young men of Indiana aren't all stupid, the waiting list in that
particular unit was so long, that if Quayle waited it out, he would have
been drafted first. What did he do? He had his family assert pressure at
the right places and voila! His name went to the front of the list!!

-- 
Zack Sessions
sessions@seq.uncwil.edu
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
"Good health is merely the slowest form of dying."
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh