page_title: Draft evasion in the Vietnam War
section_title: Enlisting to evade
hierarchical_section_title: Draft evasion in the Vietnam War / Evasion in Australia and the United States / Enlisting to evade
caption_attribution_description: English: Phil Ochs
context_page_description: Draft evasion in the Vietnam War was a common practice in Australia and the United States. Significant draft avoidance was taking place even before the U.S. became heavily involved in the Vietnam War. The large cohort of Baby Boomers allowed for a steep increase in the number of exemptions and deferments, especially for college and graduate students. According to peace studies scholar David Cortright, more than half of the 27 million men eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War were deferred, exempted, or disqualified.
context_section_description: As U.S. troop strength in Vietnam increased, some young men sought to evade the draft by pro-actively enlisting in military forces that were unlikely to see combat in Vietnam. For example, conscription scholars Lawrence Baskir and William Strauss say that the Coast Guard may have served that purpose for some, though they also point out that Coast Guardsmen had to maintain readiness for combat in Vietnam, and that some Coast Guardsmen eventually served and were killed there.  Similarly, the Vietnam-era National Guard was seen by some as an avenue for avoiding combat in Vietnam, although that too was less than foolproof: about 15,000 National Guardsmen were sent to Vietnam before the war began winding down.
caption: Phil Ochs (1940–1976) was one of several countercultural figures to encourage draft evasion.
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