On the Morality of Avoiding the Draft, 1965-1971

I have (I think this is pretty well known) little or no use for T. Rump. But in the late 1960s and (very) early 1970s, thousands, if not millions, of young men did whatever they could to avoid military service. I was happy to receive student deferments. After those expired, I didn't do anything particularly active, but the outcome of my pre-induction physical was that they didn't want me. (I had, however, applied to McGill University to do graduate work and was prepared to go.) I knew people who worked real hard at being exempt; I knew of doctors who would provide diagnoses that could get you exempted. 

All that had consequences. More of the burden of military service and of risk of serious injury or death in Viet Nam fell on people who wouldn't, or couldn't, game the system.

But I find it difficult to attribute any particular moral failing to people who did not want to be complicit in an unjust war in which literally millions of people--many of them "collateral damage"--non-combatants who had no place to hide--died.

I'm willing to suggest that T. Rump is a hypocrite for policies that force others to be subject to risks he avoided. But that he avoided the risks? Well, that I can't get too moralistic about.