Strong feelings evoked 50 years after the draft ended

Mar. 4—A half century after the U.S. ended military conscription in favor of an all-volunteer force, memories of the draft still linger in the breeze for those who were of age during the turbulent Vietnam War era, when the draft and the conflict divided Americans.

One-third of Americans who served during the Vietnam War were drafted, according to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The other two-thirds volunteered. Those who were drafted during the Vietnam War era, 2.2 million men from 1964 to 1973, usually found themselves in the Army.

The U.S. ended its military draft 50 years ago this winter after 25 uninterrupted years of conscription.

The Selective Service Act of 1948 established the first postwar draft in American history.

The Watertown Daily Times/NNY360 recently asked readers to share their experiences with the Vietnam War-era draft — thoughts on either welcoming it, avoiding it, ignoring it and signing up for duty regardless, or actively protesting against it.

Some, like Clayton artist Gregory J. Lago, volunteered for the war out of boredom and for a raging desire to see the world, away from his predictable life in Western New York.

Others, like Arthur L. Johnson of Potsdam, was "certain" he'd be drafted during the Cold War, before Vietnam, so he signed up "to get it over with."

And some, like William H. Kimball of Watertown, had a low draft lottery number, increasing the chance he'd be conscripted. But he was in college when the Vietnam War and draft ended. "Would I have gone? Probably, as I loved my parents and did not want to hurt them," he said.

Meanwhile, often overlooked is the way the draft affected families. Two years after Ronald H. Monica married his Indian River Central School sweetheart, Marion E. Flood, in 1964, the "greetings and salutations" arrived from Uncle Sam, destroying hopes of enlarging the family dairy farm.

"Was it all bad? No," said Mrs. Monica, whose husband died Feb. 28, 2022. "We often felt that we gave up two years of our lives while others got to live theirs as they wished. The unfairness should never be tolerated."

Thousands of American men jumped the border to Canada to escape the draft and live as they wished, a controversial move. In January 1970, responding to a letter received by the Times highlighting talks of organizing a cross-border collaboration to assist draft evaders — an "underground railroad" involving churches — resulted in a three-part series "presenting the thoughts and comments of those most closely associated with the subject."

The letter was not published in the paper's "From the People" section, but rather sparked a news story. However, the final part of the series included excerpts from scores of letters received by the Times with thoughts on the "underground" plan, which apparently was unfounded.

A Carthage man wrote, "Are we to wait until the big bear walks around Public Square with his red flag waving? I highly recommend that clergy who are allegedly men with a high degree of intelligence, refer to Webster's rendition of treason ..."

In January 1977, President Jimmy Carter, a World War II Navy veteran, granted unconditional pardons to those who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War. Deserters were excluded.

Roland Van Deusen, Clayton, a professional counselor to active-duty Fort Drum soldiers and who facilitates a veterans support group, served 10 years of wartime service — eight in the reserves ("My weekly reserve drills kept the Liverpool Electric Parkway safe for democracy") and two overseas on active duty. Due to bad eyesight, his requests for river patrol boat duty in Vietnam was twice rejected and he never saw combat.

Mr. Van Deusen believes that among wars that the U.S. was involved in following World War II, only two from that time on — the Korean War (1950-53) and Desert Storm (1991, a military operation to expel occupying Iraqi forces from Kuwait) were not "endless, winless wars." The other three — Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, he believes, did fit that description, while defining an endless, winless war as "unjust and immoral."

'LET ME TELL YA A STORY'

Mr. Lago and his family lived along the Erie Canal in Western New York. He became beguiled with tales of military adventures and misadventures in an unusual way — along Route 31.

"I used to hitchhike back and forth to school, 13 miles," Mr. Lago said. "Sometimes, I'd do it twice a day, with football practice and things like that. It was a busy road."

Many times, he would be picked up by soldiers, mainly from the Niagara Falls Air Force Base, which became Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station in 1971. Many of the soldiers who picked him up had their tongues loosened by booze, he said.

"It was two guys having a ball, with the windows rolled down, saying, 'Hey kid — let me tell ya a story.' I was well aware of Vietnam, but I was confident that nothing would happen to me. I'm very lucky."

Mr. Lago was 18 when he signed up for four years in the Army. The GI Bill enticed him with its financial help for college. He told his recruiter he was interested in mechanical drawing, and Mr. Lago was told there was an Army school for that.

"I signed up for mechanical drawing, but when I got to basic training at Fort Dix, they said, 'Everybody is infantry here.' That's the way it was."

He was assigned to a team of forward observers with the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division.

"Usually it's only three months," he said. "I stayed out all year because I liked the people that I was with in the infantry."

Mr. Lago served in Vietnam from March 1968 to March 1969. He left the Army as a sergeant and attended Buffalo State University for art school but didn't graduate.

"By the time I got back, I was no longer really pro-war," Mr. Lago said, and recalled even his company commander opined, 'We're going about this the wrong way.'"

The phrase "Thank you for your service" bothers Mr. Lago.

"That's probably one of the things that riles me the most," he said. "When people say, 'Thank you for your service' — I didn't really do it for you. I did it for purely selfish reasons. And I came back basically unscathed."

From 1985 to 1997, Mr. Lago worked as an illustrator at Fort Drum. He's a well-known artist in the area, that status highlighted in 2021 with the Thousand Islands Arts Center's solo exhibit, "Bird on the Wire: The Art of Greg Lago." Many of his art pieces have cultural and social themes, including war.

He is still in touch with his company commander, who he says now is a two-star general, and a piece of advice he gave to Mr. Lago lingers with him: "The politicians come and go and the wars come and go, but if you're a good soldier, nobody can take that away from you."

"That's covered a lot of bases for me with a lot of people over the years," Mr. Lago said. "I always get treated to my face with a lot of respect."

'GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS'

Ronald H. Monica and Marion E. Flood, Indian River Central School sweethearts, were wed in the summer of 1964.

"When the 'Greetings and salutations' came from Uncle Sam, we were stunned," Mrs. Monica, Gouverneur, recalled in an email to the Times. Letters from the president informing young men that they were selected for induction began with: "Greeting: You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States, and to report at ..."

"I come home from work one night, and here it is — sitting on the table," Mrs. Monica said of the letter. "That was before you called your wife at work."

This was early 1966, with the couple, wed two years previously, planning to expand their farm after purchasing heifers, which were "ready to freshen" — set to produce milk.

"Ron was working nights at New York Air Brake," Mrs. Monica wrote. "The heifers would have to be sold and we would have to sell our house trailer. We moved to Philadelphia so I could be nearer to my parents and help Dad (Douglas Flood) in a business he ran out of his garage."

Mrs. Monica recalled that her late husband said that if he had to go to Vietnam, he wanted to be the best possible, so he enlisted in the Marines. His rifle skills, gained from years of hunting, impressed officers, earning Mr. Monica a Sharpshooter Medal.

"While Ron knew how to handle firearms and was a crack shot, it was all the military regulations he was worried about," she said.

Mrs. Monica said the circle of friends around she and her husband "seemed to be able to avoid having to go."

"Our main problem with the draft was the total unfairness of it," she said. "The way we felt, that if one man was drafted then every man should be drafted. If for some health reason, someone would be exempted, there were enough jobs in the military outside of combat that could have been filled. Why should we have to give up two years of our lives so others could just go about theirs?"

Mr. Monica, who stayed stateside, had his basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina. He was then sent to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and spent his second year at Camp Pendleton, California. Mrs. Monica and their two children at the time — Garth, 14 months old and Michelle, 3 months — joined Ron in California in the spring of 1967.

"We packed up our '65 Ford Fairlane and a U-Haul trailer and drove from Philadelphia to Oceanside, California," Mrs. Monica said. "It was amazing to see how the landscape changes. We never forgot the men in the store in Missouri who left their checker game to come out on the porch to wish us safe journey. The flat plains of the Texas panhandle, the beautiful painted desert in Arizona, and of course, the Pacific Ocean and living in Oceanside, a city about the size of Watertown. So, when you grew up on a farm outside of Theresa or in the village of Philadelphia, it took a little getting use to."

So did their new accommodations.

"Our apartment was remodeled World War II barracks with a cockroach problem," Mrs. Monica said. "Not much fun when you are miles away from family with two babies to care for. Growing up in Philadelphia, I was used to the Howitzer guns when they shook the buildings."

Their year in California was about to end in January 1968 when North Korea captured the USS Pueblo, a Navy intelligence ship, and its crew. One crew member, Duane Hodges, was killed during the seizure when the ship came under fire. The remaining 82 sailors were released in December 1968.

"If you want to see a base the size of Pendleton lockdown, take an American ship," Mrs. Monica said. "For days, we didn't know if Ron would be able to muster out. That was always the threat. You could be extended, for how long was never made clear. When our grandchildren were in high school, we asked what was being taught and the Pueblo was barely mentioned."

Mrs. Monica recalled that the family's military experience "wasn't all bad."

"The places we saw, the people we met, and the experiences we had we never would have had them otherwise, but I could have lived without being uprooted, losing my husband for a year and his going to base and coming home for fear of what he might have to tell me. Sometimes the Marines were shipped out without notification or even getting to say good-bye."

After mustering out of the Marines in April 1968, Mr. Monica and his family returned to Northern New York. He returned to New York Air Brake, briefly. In December 1968, Mr. and Mrs. Monica and their two older children (another child, Andrew, would be born more than a decade later) moved to their "Aurora Acres" farm on Stammer Road, town of Rossie. In 2013, the dairy was sold.

'HISTORY HAS PROVED US RIGHT'

Like many boys born in the 1950s, the draft was constantly on the mind of William H. Kimball, a retired Watertown licensed psychologist born in 1952.

"Most of us growing up then had patriotic fathers who served in World War II, but we knew the Vietnam War was different," Mr. Kimball said. "We knew we could be courageous but did not want our lives to end in a war that we saw as a mistake, and I think history has proved us right."

On the nightly TV news, the "body counts" of war casualties were omnipresent. "That was scary, to say the least," Mr. Kimball said. "While in high school, we read about boys just a few years older than us coming home in body bags. Scary stuff."

Mr. Kimball and others his age pinned their hopes on Robert F. Kennedy as he ran for president. RFK eventually became a critic of the war and was assassinated on June 6, 1968.

"So we kept protesting, peacefully in my case," Mr. Kimball said. "I was luckier than some, as I was a good student who went to college and got a deferment. They still existed and I know now the system favored well-to-do white boys like me."

Mr. Kimball was in college when the draft ended and when the last American combat troops left South Vietnam in March 1973. A few months before then, in January 1973, after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird had announced the end of the military draft.

Mr. Kimball said he "probably" would have gone if drafted, if only not to hurt his parents.

"But I hated the war," he said. "We can't save all countries, especially ones with weak governments that do not have a strong democracy and have citizens who will not fight for their country. About 30 years of my life, there have been wrong wars. Afghanistan started with a noble purpose after 9/11 but became what it should not have become — nation building. The Iraq war was just a total mistake."

He added, "While I didn't serve in combat, I partially know the horrors of war as I worked as a licensed psychologist and saw the war veterans suffering from PTSD — even many years later."

Today, Mr. Kimball is thankful his two sons didn't have to worry about being drafted.

"If they had been, it would have been to Afghanistan. I sure respect our veterans, but politicians need to only go to war if we are supporting a country that has a strong democracy and its citizens will fight for their country," he said.

AN ARMY TRADITION

Wayne R. Gibbs graduated in 1965 from Union Academy of Belleville. Following his graduation, he sought an agricultural job in the area. But he said employers were skittish with the status of potential employees with young men diverted to the military.

"Employers didn't want to hire you where they couldn't guarantee a job if you didn't come back after they trained somebody," Mr. Gibbs said.

He signed up for the Army, the same branch his father, Frank E. Gibbs Jr., served in during World War II. Frank was part of the 811th Tank Destroyers of the Army's 106th Infantry Division. He was a chauffeur for a lieutenant in his platoon and was captured by German forces on Dec. 19, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. He spent four months in captivity and was rescued in April 1945.

Frank died in 2012 at the age of 94. Before the war, he worked at the Machold Farm in Ellisburg and was offered a farm deferment.

"The manager called me into his office. He said, 'If you worked for me, you wouldn't have to go,'" Frank told the Times in 2007. "I said, 'I'm young and not married. I figure I should go.'"

Mr. Gibbs entered basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He spent some time in Germany before volunteering for Vietnam duties, assigned to the 5th Battalion/7th Cavalry, becoming a "Sky Trooper." In 1968, he was seriously wounded.

"Shrapnel from mortar hit me in the leg and in my sides," he said. "I got lucky." His wounds led to a splenectomy, and he was sent home.

"Military duty offers benefits — VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) care, education opportunities, college, etcetera," Mr. Gibbs, a member of Adams VFW Post 5344 said. "The VA takes damn good care of me."

In May 1968, Mr. Gibbs went to Schoeller Paper in Pulaski to ask for a job. He was hired the same day and retired from Schoeller in 2003. He said he's attended, every two years, each 5th/7th reunion since 1992.

COLD WAR VOLUNTEER

Arthur L. Johnson retired in 1999 after 31 years of teaching American and Canadian history at SUNY Potsdam. He graduated from college during the Cold War, in 1955. "I was between Korea and Vietnam, thank God," he said of those conflicts. "I went to the Selective Service office in Farmingham, Massachusetts and said, 'Please put me on the July call.'" That ensured only two years of service, he said. "My brothers served during World War II and I had no wish to avoid it."

After basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey, Mr. Johnson did further training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and at Fort Bliss in Texas before being assigned to a ground missile unit in Italy.

"I loved Italy," he said. "I got a three-day pass at one point and went to Florence and visited the Uffizi Gallery, the Pitti Palace, ate pizza and it was great. We were also an hour's train ride out of Venice, so most weekends I was able to get to Venice, unless we were in the field on maneuvers."

He would earn his doctorate from the University of Maine.

AN 'ADDICTION TO WAR'

Clayton resident Roland Van Deusen, a 1963 graduate of Watertown High School, is a prolific contributor to "Letters From the People" on the Watertown Daily Times' editorial page. He put in 10 years of wartime service, eight in the reserves and two on overseas active duty. He's a professional retired counselor to active duty soldiers at Fort Drum, incarcerated veterans and has had his works on military and veterans' matters published in Combat Stress and Psychiatric Times magazines. He now facilitates a veterans support group in Clayton.

He enlisted in the Naval Reserve at the age of 17 "to get out of Maywood Terrace."

"It was a year before I had to register for the draft, and more than two years before the Gulf of Tonkin 'incident,'" he said.

In August 1964, two U.S. destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam radioed that they had been fired upon by North Vietnamese forces. President Lyndon B. Johnson requested permission from Congress to increase the U.S. military presence in Indochina. Three days after the incident, on Aug. 7, 1964, Congress agreed, passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

"When I got my draft card, I was ineligible for the draft," Mr. Van Deusen said. "My weekly reserve drills kept the Liverpool Electric Parkway safe for democracy. Bad eyesight twice rejected my requests for River Patrol Boats in Vietnam and I never saw combat."

He added, "A spectacular example of my white privilege was figuring out 40 years later that Iceland demanded no African American servicemen stationed on their soil back then, and the U.S. complied," Mr. Van Deusen said. "Something about the 'purity of their gene pool.' So there I was, breaking up drunken brawls between Marines and sailors at Naval Air Station Keflavik."

Mr. Van Deusen said "many of the single guys" volunteered for Vietnam to get out of Iceland.

"But they wouldn't send us," he said. "The base was too busy intercepting all the Russian military aircraft coming over the North Pole and tracking the Russian submarines trying to sneak out into the North Atlantic. How we tailed the subs is not for publication."

The rest of his time in the service was on a supply ship replenishing the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. "Italy five times, Spain three times. Civilians pay thousands today for cruises like that," he said.

Mr. Van Deusen said he prefers the "volunteer military."

"I was early poverty draft," he said. "Nixon only ended the draft to get reelected. I'm not opposed to some sort of national service if you have other options — Peace Corps, etcetera, besides the military. Our problem is addiction to war, as military force is our first foreign policy option, not our last. The hammer sees everything as a nail. The draft was not for the rich kids."

Mr. Van Deusen has been a Veterans For Peace member since 1991. Members of the nonprofit group, including Mr. Van Deusen, have been resisting and protesting wars at home and abroad for more than 35 years.

"Military service is a milestone for better or worse for those of us who served," Mr. Van Deusen said. "And if your military service is stained by endless, winless war, this can be an emotional millstone around your neck."

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DRAFT — 1863: Congress passes the first military conscription act during the Civil War, allowing President Abraham Lincoln to draft men between the ages of 20 and 45. A draftee could opt out by paying $300 for a "substitute." — 1917: The Selective Service Act passes, authorizing President Woodrow Wilson to temporarily increase the military members of the United States. More than 24 million men between the ages of 18 and 45 register during World War I. — 1940: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Selective Training and Service Act, creating the country's first peacetime draft and officially establishing the Selective Service System. Those who were selected from a draft lottery were required to serve at least one year in the armed forces. Once the U.S. entered World War II, terms extended through the duration of the fighting. Men between the ages of 18 and 26 were vulnerable to being drafted. Local boards called men classified 1-A, 18 1/2 through 25 years old, oldest first. — 1969: A lottery drawing — the first since 1942 — is held. It determined the order of call for induction during calendar year 1970 — for registrants born between Jan. 1, 1944, and Dec. 31, 1950. Reinstitution of the lottery was a change from the "draft the oldest man first" method, which had been the determining method for deciding order of call. — 1971: Congress reforms the draft. Previously, a man could qualify for a student deferment if he could show he was a full-time student making satisfactory progress in virtually any field of study. He could continue to go to school and be deferred from service until he was too old to be drafted. Under the new rules, a college student can have his induction postponed only until the end of the current semester. A senior can be postponed until the end of the full academic year. — 1973: Induction authority expires. The Selective Service System remains in existence in "standby" to support the all-volunteer force in case of an emergency. — 1975: Registration is suspended and the Selective Service System enters into "deep standby." — 1980: Registration for the draft resumes. Young men must register within 30 days of their 18th birthday. From July 1980 to June 1982, 3,306 men in Jefferson County registered, 3,823 in St. Lawrence County and 985 in Lewis County. A draft held today would use a lottery to determine the order of call. A registrant would be guaranteed a personal appearance before his board if he wanted to appeal his classification. Before 1971, a draftee was not guaranteed this right.

Sources: National Archives, Selective Service System, the World War II Museum and Watertown Daily Times.