Tag: defer

I graduated from high school in the summer of 1967. About 250 young men were being killed every week in Vietnam. I was ordered to report to my draft board in the summer of 1967. They asked me if I intended to go to college? They told me if I went to college 4 years and kept up my grades they would defer military service until after college. I thought this was strange? Should not everyone have to go as in previous wars? If you exempt some this will cause divisions in our culture! There is an old saying among my generation during the Vietnam war. It says the chickens went to college and the Eagles went to war! I decided to join the chickens. It was a big flock and plenty of bird brains in college during the war! Hundreds of new colleges sprung up all over America overnight with majors in basket weaving! To give exemptions to hundreds of thousands of college students was a big mistake! Any culture will be united if they are all making equal sacrifices in the war effort. I never demonstrated one day against the Vietnam war. If you play chicken the least you could do is support the Eagles! Things got worse! Martin Luther King assassinated in 1968 and then Bobby Kennedy! Race riots in every major city across America! The Tet offensive in Vietnam escalated the war. Our veterans returning from Vietnam were disrespected? At the end of the war with over 50000 killed and tens of thousands wounded what good can come out of this? Do not forget over 100000 Vietnam veterans commited suicide after coming home! In World war II everyone participated in the war effort! Vietnam veterans were just as courageous and exceptional in their service to our nation! History will show it was not the wrong war but the wrong approach to the war by our leaders. The same problem exists in our voluntary military today! Today only a small percentage of our population is involved in the war effort so most of the culture is disengaged from the war! Over the years I was always looking for something good out of the Vietnam war? Some think that the Berlin Wall coming down some 20 years later was due to financial expenditures the Soviets made fighting through proxy against us in Vietnam? As I watched several hours of combat film of the Vietnam war I began to see a pattern! As hundreds of helicopters picked up the dead and wounded American’s from the battle field I noticed the wounded who were still conscious were not concerned about their own wounds but concerned about their fellow comrades! They would say things like,”Who will protect my buddies if I am not there to defend them?” Who will help my brothers? Who will help them if I am not able? The Vietnam American veterans were not dying for a political philosophy or for the democratic or republican party! They were dying for each other! Jesus put it best in John 15:13 when he said,”Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” That was what Jesus did for you and all humanity! When you pass by a Vietnam veteran tell him, “Thankyou.” James and Hamsa Sasse. GodWhoisGod.com