Drudge has the following:
Dean used obscure back condition to get out of military draft in 1970; now admits that he was not eager to serve, although he says in interview, ‘he probably could have’… Developing…
As a veteran, whose father served in Vietnam, and who intends to vote Republican come next November, let me just say: It doesn’t matter. Not only did the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 innoculate anyone from draft dodger charges, but a phenomenal number of people who “probably could have” served in Vietnam got out of it through a variety of ways. Indeed, this includes a number of rather prominent Republicans, starting with George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney.
For that matter, there is a rumor going around that John Kerry served in Vietnam. It doesn’t seem to be helping him much.
The draft worked well in an era where it was virtually impossible to get deferments from it and when employers were mainly veterans who would routinely ask to see a man’s Honorable Discharge before thinking about hiring him. Those days were long gone by Vietnam. If you let anyone who can get into and pay for college, anyone who can get into the National Guard (back in the days when the Guard seldom deployed), or anyone with a dozen other reasons get out of it, those who don’t want to serve, won’t. By 1973, we went to an all-volunteer force and rendered it a moot question. Four years later, President Carter pardoned all those who ran off to Canada to avoid service in Vietnam.
I’m still reasonably confident that Howard Dean will not be our next president. But using a bad back to weasel out of combat duty–assuming the Drudge blurb is even true–won’t be a significant factor in that.
