Born the same year as Donald Trump, Thorne-Thomsen made a very different decision than our current president. How male baby boomers responded in the 1960s and how they saw their decisions, says a lot of about character. There was no one perfect answer. But on any scale of responses, Trump's was near the bottom. And his refusal to recognize his use of privilege (including what appears to have been a phony doctor's note), is consistent with his other character flaws.
At good friend from high school responded as follows:
Sorry, but I have no respect for anyone, especially the educated, who knowingly participated in what I consider the worst thing our country ever did. Citing "justice" after being drafted is convenient. The fight for justice was the fight AGAINST the war, not fighting IN it. Once in battle you are morally obligated to do heroic things -- and to kill people who have done you and your country no wrong. Had he lived, I suspect he would have gone into politics, holding his medal high.
My friend's point has some force, but led me to draft a response. Since it is too long for a short Facebook Comment, I thought I'd put my response in this blog:
For those of us who were opposed to the War, I think that those who decided to go to jail rather than submit to the Draft were the most principled, but those who were not legitimate conscientious objectors who did submit because of the class-based unfairness (and adherence to the rule of law in a democratic society) were pretty high up there. Both approaches recognized responsibilities of citizenship within a country which elected its leaders, however foolish those leaders may have been. One was the path of civil disobedience and the other was the path of being faithful to democratic and egalitarian norms.
In 1969, upon college graduation, I went to work as a VISTA Volunteer (something I had planned to do since the creation of VISTA in 1964). Working in a prison in Memphis, I concluded pretty quickly that I did not have the courage to do time rather than submit to the draft once my year in VISTA was over. And leaving the country to avoid the draft seemed to me to be an abandonment of responsibility to participate in the movement to end the War, and an abandonment of a country that provided my "tribe" as a Jew a refuge from the terrible fate that other Jews faced in the first half of the 20th Century. I had pretty well decided I would submit to the Draft and hope that I would not become cannon fodder. I was freed from that fate because my doctor's letter -- an honest description of my health (a description which I did not think would get me a deferment) -- caused my Draft Board to classify me 4-F.
So how did our Baby Boomer Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates respond to the challenge of the 1960s. Whatever one thinks of the "political" motives of Gore's and Kerry's decisions to go into the active-duty military (to which I assume my friend was alluding), they were operating within the rule of law and did not pull the 20th Century version of a Grover Cleveland, who paid someone poorer to take his place in the Civil War. Quayle and Bush the Second, on the other hand, hid out in the National Guard -- which, unlike in the post-Draft era of the Middle East Wars, was a virtual guarantee of not being shipped overseas. As for Bill Clinton, while he pulled a fast one on his local Draft Board, at least he continued to work in the Anti-Viet Nam War effort, unlike so many of our generation who, once they were clear of the draft, simply bugged out of involvement. Donald Trump, on the other hand, bought an Upper East Side doctor's note that was illegitimate (he could not even remember on which foot the alleged "bone spur" was located), and did nothing with his freedom but go into the family business, which, it appears, was rooted in part in perpetuating housing discrimination in Brooklyn and Queens.
Trump was the worst of the Baby Boomers, and somehow HE became the last Viet Nam era Baby Boomer President. And I think that is why telling the story of Carl Thorne-Thomsen is important.
Thanks for the post -- I saw Ira's comment and was wondering what your thoughts were. But I wonder why you characterize joining the National Guard as "hid[ing] out." Why wasn't it a legitimate way to recognize the responsibilities of citizenship within a country with foolish but fairly-elected leaders (to paraphrase your language)? I don't know much about what the National Guard was doing at that time, or about whether it was an opportunity that was available to everyone, so I might be missing something. But it seems like a reasonable enough way to balance responsible citizenship with a desire to avoid a dangerous and morally problematic war.
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