How Dick Cheney dodged the Vietnam draft. - The timeline

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.slate.com/id/2097365/

Elizabeth Cheney, Deferment Baby
By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, March 18, 2004, at 5:09 PM ET

"{T}he Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample doubts about his judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security," Vice President Dick Cheney said during a March 17 visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. He was talking, of course, about John Kerry, the putative Democratic presidential nominee. During the past three years, we've all become better acquainted with Vice President Cheney's judgment and attitude toward national security, which are a good deal more hawkish than Kerry's. A widely observed irony is that the dovish Kerry saw combat in Vietnam while the hawkish Cheney accepted a series of student and family-related draft deferments. Cheney's unself-consciousness about this is (or at least was) so pronounced that in 1989 he told George C. Wilson of the Washington Post, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." snip

Aug. 29, 1964: Dick and Lynne Cheney marry.

May 19, 1965: The Selective Service classifies Dick Cheney 1-A, "available immediately for military service."

July 28, 1965: President Lyndon Johnson says draft calls will be doubled.

Oct. 26, 1965: The Selective Service declares that married men without children, who were previously exempted from the draft, will now be called up. Married men with children remain exempt.

Jan. 19, 1966: The Selective Service reclassifies Dick Cheney 3-A, "deferred from military service because service would cause hardship upon his family," because his wife is pregnant with their first child.

July 28, 1966: Elizabeth Cheney is born.

Jan. 30, 1967: Dick Cheney turns 26 and therefore becomes ineligible for the draft.

Dedicated students of obstetrics will observe that Elizabeth Cheney's birth date falls precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service publicly revoked its policy of not drafting childless husbands. This would seem to indicate that the Cheneys, though doubtless planning to have children sometime, were seized with an untamable passion the moment Dick Cheney became vulnerable to the Vietnam draft. And acted on it. Carpe diem!

Who says government policy can't affect human behavior?

[Hepburn]

1. Oh, a bouncing baby deferment....

...how sweet...

:eyes:

[Bleacher Creature]

2. As if Liz Cheney hasn't harmed this country enough . . .

[rurallib]

3. On a related note: GOP won't back HCR because it is mandatory.

Claiming the government has no power to mandate that its citizens be forced to do anything.
As exhibit A, I give you the bane of my youth, the military draft.

[spanone]

4. a draft dodger and a war criminal....

[slampoet]

5. Screwing each other and the government.....ya real sexy.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Don't forget the guy that had to be drafted to replace Cheney when he chickened out

That guy could have died there or come back all shot up?

Don

[Winterblues]

7. So many here are quick to indict on this but I wonder....

Put yourself in the mid sixties with a foreign war going on and you had the ability to avoid the draft by either school or marriage and babies or some other available means. Especially if you disagreed with the war...I know Cheney did not disagree but how many here would not try and get out of the draft if the opportunity presented itself? Many on the Left actually burnt their draft cards and even fled the country for Canada and other countries..It is hypocritical for those that favored that war though and did their best to avoid going..Chicken Hawks is the name given and I think suitable.. What I am saying is Avoiding the draft is not a bad thing. Avoiding the Draft while cheering on the war is another matter..

[Old and In the Way]

8. I was in that position in the early 70's....I was torn with what to do.

I ended up getting my physical and, while I considered relocating to Canada, I probably wouldn't have done it. Luckily, for me, they stopped drafting the year of my elligibility.

The difference is, of course, not the act of avoiding the draft...but the disconnect between evading it and becoming a war mongering, war profiteer. That's what I find disgusting with 5 Deferments and his buddy AWOL. Funny how that always seems to be the way many wars start - by people who never experience that hell 1st hand.

[NNN0LHI]

9. Um, Cheney was for continuing the Vietnam War. He thought it was a swell idea

I don't blame anyone who dodged the draft who didn't agree with the war.

See the difference?

Don

[NoSheep]

11. And that is what Cheney is guilty of. Avoiding the draft AND being a war monger

and profiteer. That's obvious, right? A given. Am I missing your point?

[Winterblues]

12. A lot of the post only refer to him as a "Draft Dodger"

To some including me a "Draft Dodger" has an element of honor to it. A Chicken Hawk on the other hand is an entirely different animal..

[NoSheep]

14. I didn't realize anyone thought he was anything but a chicken hawk...

I guess I can't assume everyone agrees with me ;-)

[Ernesto]

10. Classic CHICKEN-HAWK!.....

Real tough guy as long as he's shooting lil birds

[Angry Dragon]

15. And his hunting partners....n/t

[paranoid floyd]

13. And with these timelines...

... you've inadvertently forced me to visualize Darth nailing his horrid mate. Excuse me while puke for the rest of the day.