Abstract

Dick's Vietnam Hypocrisy

The author discusses how Vice President Dick Cheney avoided the draft during the Vietnam war. Dick Cheney has positioned himself as the Bush Administration's point man in the ongoing work of questioning the national security credentials of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Cheney's latest attacks on Kerry come as part of a renewed push by the Bush/Cheney campaign, the Republican National Committee and their media allies to suggest that somewhere in the story of Kerry's evolution from decorated Vietnam War combatant to outspoken antiwar activist in the early 1970s can be found evidence that he is unfit to serve as Commander in Chief. But what of Cheney's Vietnam-era story? Like Kerry, Cheney was "of age" for service. Faced with the chance to engage on the battlefield or the home front, however, he dodged out--not for moral reasons but selfish ones. Dick Cheney was definitely opposed to the draft, at least as far as it affected him. Between 1963 and '65, Cheney used his student status at Casper College and the University of Wyoming to apply for and receive four 2-S draft deferments. On May 19, 1965, Cheney was reclassified with the most dangerous draft status: 1-A, "available for military service." Precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service eliminated special protections for childless married men, Cheney was no longer childless. Cheney admitted to a reporter, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."