Couldn't you get out of a draft by telling the draft board you are gay?

[ringmastery]

They will consider you mentally unfit for duty, won't they?

How the hell will they know if you are telling the truth or not? Anyone can pretend to be gay for a day to save their life.

[Occulus]

1. photos

of you performing a homosexual sex act would prove it.

The question is, are you willing to go that far?

[Qanisqineq]

2. oh, I have a story of how someone got OUT of the military

by pretending to be mentally unstable

[PaDUer]

Tell the story.n/t

[Qanisqineq]

8. a guy pretended to dribble an invisible basketball

for weeks. He pretended like it was actually there, went to work everyday and would dribble this basketball, would pretend to hold it if he was told to stop or put it down and later pick it up. He went to counseling and still claimed there was a basketball. Finally his commander (or some higher-up) wrote up the papers to let him out.

After the soldier signed the papers and was getting up to leave, the commander said, "you forgot your basketball."

The soldier replied, "Game over"

[PaDUer]

18. Thanks! Good one..n/t

[RoyGBiv]

22. Hmmm...

Why does this remind me of Corporal Klinger?

[Qanisqineq]

24. maybe that's where he got the idea! (n/t)

[aquart]

3. That's how my ex-boyfriend got out of Viet Nam.

But you better make sure that you're future occupation won't be sticky about seeing that as your disqualification. It was put in your permanent records back then. I don't know about now.

[RoyGBiv]

4. The Draft Board

You can get every thing you want
At Alice's Restaurant...
Excepting Alice.

You need to listen to that song.

[Djinn]

5. couldn't you also pretend to have dodgy eyesight

if you CAN read the chart you can just pretend you can't - how would they know? or pretend you were a nutjob? or I would have thought even saying you'd recently converted to Islam would give this lot a reason to overlook you. It's something I always wondered about the draft during Vietnam days, surely there were ways to get out of it without going to jail and/or Canada

[RoyGBiv]

23. Converted

Well, with the current powers-that-be, converting to Islam could get you out of the draft and land you in jail.

[dsc]

6. In theory, yes

but in practice, not exactly. In the VietNam era several people were inducted even after saying, truthfully, that they were gay. In 1991, and now, seperations for being gay were temporarily stopped for troops bound for Iraq. The troops serve, then get discharged. Also the bad paper and the claim of being gay would follow you forever. Getting a good job as a dishonorably or less than honorably discharged vet is hard in most places. Getting one as a gay male is hard in some places.

[Djinn]

7. good points

but you can't be discharged if you never get IN to the army right? or as soon as you get the call up you're by default "in"?

what if you were really physically unfit?

[dsc]

9. I am no expert

but I do know that even now we know that Chevy Chase was rejected for stating he was gay. He is, for the record, straight. That has followed him around. Whether it does so as the equivalent of a bad discharge or just as having been rejected, I don't know.

[ringmastery]

13. well

having being gay in your military records is a hell of a lot better than going to Iraq and coming home in a body bag.

It's also a lot better than going to jail and being fined $250,000 for dodging the draft.

It sounds like the least objectionable alternative.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

10. It is a myth that it is hard to get a job with a dishonorable discharge.

It's one of those things they want you to believe, but it's not true. There are really not many jobs where it will matter.

[dsc]

19. that probably is true

but I know that many apps ask if you have ever been in the military. Thus you have to cop to being dishonorably discharged or lie. A good friend of mine got a section 8 and lied on all his applications after that. He did get the jobs though.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

20. Wow! we managed to have an exchange without getting into an argument

I've become a tiny bit less cynical.

[justsam]

11. it may have worked

at one time, but this adminastration would have you shot..

[rpannier]

12. In Theory You Could

However, if you ever got married, they probably could arrest for falsifying federal documents and lying under oath, since they'd probably force tou to say you were gay under oath. The odds of them watching you would be very slim though.

[OneBlueSky]

16. nah . . . just tell 'em you went to one of them Christian . . .

deprogramming ministries . . . and it worked, praise Jesus! . . .

[HawkerHurricane]

14. Depends on how desperate they are...

There is at least one case of a gay man who told his board he was gay, and was told 'yeah, right', and was drafted.
He decided he liked the service and reenlisted.
20+ years later, he was 'outed' and given a dishonorable discharge for 'lying on his enlistment papers'.
The discharge was overturned (changed to General under honorable circumstances) because he hadn't lied, he said right there that he was a active homosexual.
He collected full pay and retirement benefits appropriate to his rank, plus legal fees and 'pain and suffering'.

[dsc]

17. almost

but he wasn't outed. He had told them each and every time he reupped that he was gay. All but his last reup came before 1981 when the policy was toughened. It was in 1986, I think, that he was prevented from reupping and sued. The name is Perry Walkins.

[NuttyFluffers]

15. oooh, reminds me of a book!

read a book about people's stories on how they avioded going to vietnam. i can't remember the exact title, but i think it was "hell no, we won't go."

it was a great book. i remember some great stories from there. one of the more memorable ones was about a dude who took peanut butter to new heights in his pursuit to evade being drafted.

[Triple H]

21. I wouldn't be able to serve anyways.

I have various mental disorders...and I'm flat-footed and ticklish.

[Qanisqineq]

25. Whew! I'm ticklish too!

Guess I'm safe. I'm insane too, but they might like that!

[Triple H]

26. Maybe I should leave out the insane part....

lol.

[Qanisqineq]

27. I think it would be best

otherwise we might be just what they are looking for!

[caledesi]

28. During Nam, a friend of mine purposely raised his blood pressure,

then he had to come back a second time and he did the same thing.