Tim O'Brien

Excerpt from his story "On the Rainy River"

Published in The Things They Carried, 1990

"I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile. I was afraid of walking away from my own life, my friends and my family, my whole history, everything that mattered to me."

As American involvement in Vietnam deepened, the United States used a military draft system known as the Selective Service to meet its troop needs. But the draft soon became one of the most controversial aspects of the entire war. The antiwar movement condemned it as a terrible system that forced America's sons to fight an immoral war. Some supporters of the war disliked its rules as well. In fact, they joined antiwar activists in charging that draft rules favored young men from middle-class and wealthy families and forced America's poor and workingclass families to shoulder most of the burden of the war. As criticism of the draft intensified and opposition to the war increased, millions of young draftees resorted to a variety of strategies to avoid military service in Vietnam. Millions of others decided to obey their draft notices. Either way, reaching a decision on this all-important issue was not easy for most men. Many draftees agonized over whether to accept induction (membership in the armed forces), torn by their conflicted feelings about the war and their responsibilities to family and country.

Originally created in 1948, the Selective Service was a federal agency that had the power to draft male citizens and residents between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six to serve in the U.S. armed forces. This pool of potential draftees was continually replenished over time, because every American male was required to register for the draft when he turned eighteen. During peacetime, the draft was not used very frequently. The armed services were able to meet their troop needs with volunteers. When the U.S. military commitment in Vietnam deepened in the mid-1960s, though, President Lyndon Johnson turned to the draft to meet the increased demand for soldiers.

The foundation of the Selective Service was a national network of draft boards. The boards were made up of volunteer citizens—usually white, financially secure, middle-aged men who were generally supportive of the war. These board members were responsible for reviewing the records of young draftees who lived in the area and deciding whether to approve or deny applications for draft "deferments" or "exemptions." Draftees who were given deferments were allowed to postpone entering the military service, while draftees who received exemptions were permanently excused from military duty. All other draftees—those who either did not request special status or had their requests turned down by the board—entered the military, provided they passed their medical exams.

The Selective Service process was very simple. Once a month, every draft board in the United States received instructions from the federal government to select a set number of draftees for conscription (enlistment) in the armed services. The boards then contacted eligible draftees to arrange medical exams. Those who failed were classified "4-F," which means ineligible for military service. Those who passed (and were not granted deferments or exemptions) usually were assigned to the U.S. Army. The Army was the largest branch of the military, and the other branches of the armed forces usually received enough volunteers to meet their needs.

At first glance, only a small percentage of American men appeared to be directly impacted by the draft. After all, of the approximately 26.8 million American men who became eligible for the draft during the war, only 2.2 million were actually inducted into the Selective Service. But the threat of the draft changed the lives of millions of other young men, and it became one of the most widely criticized aspects of the entire war.

Avoiding military induction

During the course of the war, millions of young American males became "draft dodgers" in order to avoid serving in Vietnam. Some evaded the draft because they feared for their lives. Others objected to military service because of a genuine belief that the war was immoral and unjust. And many men resisted the draft because they believed that the U.S. effort in Vietnam was doomed to fail. Most draftees who worked to avoid induction were probably motivated by a combination of all of these reasons.

Draftees used a variety of strategies to evade induction, many of which were legally allowed. In fact, approximately 16 million men—about 60 percent of the total number of draftable men who became eligible during the war—avoided military service by legal means. But men from middle-and upper-class families had much greater success in using these strategies than did young draftees from poor and working-class families. This fact gave rise to a slogan that became very well known during the war: "If you got the dough, you don't have to go."

Student deferments. The most popular strategy for evading the draft was to gain a student deferment. Under Selective Service rules of the mid-1960s, full-time college students were automatically excused from military service for as long as they remained in school. They could also preserve their draft immunity by going on to graduate school. Millions of young men took advantage of these rules to avoid induction into the armed forces. But this protection did not extend to part-time students, who often had to work their way through college because their families could not cover college expenses. Critics charged that this arrangement was blatantly unfair because it made young men from working-class or poor backgrounds much more vulnerable to the draft than their wealthier peers.

Medical exemptions. Another 3.5 million Americans were excused from the draft for medical reasons. This exemption also benefitted men from economically prosperous backgrounds more than draftees who came from poor and working-class communities. "One might expect men from disadvantaged backgrounds, with poorer nutrition and less access to decent health care, to receive most of these exemptions," wrote Christian Appy in Working-Class War. "In practice, however, most physical exemptions were assigned to men who had the knowledge and resources to claim an exemption." These draftees used cooperative family doctors to secure medical excuses and thus avoid military service.

Men from poor and working-class backgrounds, on the other hand, generally took their medical exams at government-run military induction centers. Exemptions were much more difficult to obtain at these centers. "Even very minor disabilities were grounds for medical disqualification," noted Appy. "Skin rashes, flat feet, asthma, trick knees—such ailments were easily missed or ignored by military doctors, but they were legal exemptions that were frequently granted when attested to by a family physician."

Many draftees were excused from military service for valid medical reasons. But some otherwise healthy young men purposely mistreated their bodies in order to gain a medical exemption. Some took large quantities of drugs in hopes of flunking the medical exam. Others starved themselves or fattened themselves up in order to get outside the military's weight requirements. Finally, some draftees pretended that they were insane or homosexual in an effort to avoid induction. Generally, young men from good economic backgrounds were more likely to know about these strategies. In fact, antiwar organizations often held meetings on college campuses to inform potential draftees about their options.

Guard or reserve duty. Another popular option for young men who wanted to avoid going to Vietnam was to enlist in the National Guard or Army Reserves. These part-time volunteer military organizations, based in the United States, were regarded as a relatively safe form of military service during the war. Consequently, competition to gain admittance into these organizations was fierce. By 1968, for example, the National Guard had a waiting list of 100,000 men.

During the course of the war, both the Guard and the Reserves became notorious for unfair admission policies. The rosters of both groups became dominated by young men from wealthy or politically connected families who were able to make special arrangements for inclusion. Sons of poor and working-class families, meanwhile, often were left on the outside. Black men found it almost impossible to obtain a place in the Guard or Reserves.

Over one million Americans served in the National Guard and Army Reserves during the war. Occasionally, the safety of this type of military duty came into doubt. During the mid-1960s, for example, U.S. military leaders repeatedly asked President Lyndon Johnson to make greater use of these men in the war effort. But Johnson rejected these requests because of fears that America's middle-class and wealthy communities would turn against the war. President Richard Nixon adopted the same basic position when he assumed office in 1969. As a result, only 37,000 men from these organizations were mobilized (actively operated) during the conflict, and only 15,000 were sent to Vietnam.

Conscientious objectors. Another 170,000 Americans received "conscientious objector" (CO) deferments during theVietnam War. Conscientious objectors are people who refuse to fight in the military because of their religious and moral beliefs. Some COs asked to be excused from all military duties. Others volunteered to serve as combat medics or in other capacities in which they would not be asked to kill.

Conscientious objectors were actively supported by many local church groups and antiwar groups, but CO applications remained light in the war's early years. CO applications became much more popular as the war progressed and as the legal definition of conscientious objection changed. Initially, CO exemptions were given only to those who opposed all wars because of their belief in a Supreme Being. But the Supreme Court changed the definition in 1967 so that men could make CO applications based on general religious and moral objections to war. In 1970 the Supreme Court further ruled that the basic requirement for a CO deferment was a conviction that participation in the military violated one's "religious or moral" beliefs.

Not all CO requests were approved. In fact, local draft boards turned down more than 300,000 applications for CO deferments during the war. But many young men whose CO applications were denied mounted legal challenges to board rulings. The challenges delayed their induction into the military. They also overwhelmed the Selective Service System and created a huge backlog of cases in many of the nation's courtrooms.

Leaving the country. Some young Americans who became eligible for the draft during the war left the country rather than submit to military service. The most popular destination for these draftees was Canada, America's neighbor to the north. U.S. officials estimate that 50,000-75,000 draftees fled to Canada during the war (the Canadian government puts the figure lower, at about 30,000). Another 20,000 men relocated to Sweden, Mexico, and other countries.

Although tens of thousands of young men relocated to Canada and elsewhere to avoid military service, this strategy was commonly seen as a last resort. It was usually chosen only after other possible "draft dodging" alternatives had been exhausted. After all, men who fled to Canada knew that they might never be able to return home to America to see their family and friends without risking arrest.

Draft resisters. Another popular strategy for avoiding military induction was outright defiance. Hundreds of thousands of young American men openly resisted the Selective Service System during the war. Some refused to register for the draft. Others burned their draft cards to protest the war. "Hell no, we won't go!" became a popular rallying cry within the antiwar movement.

Active resistance to the draft became particularly commonplace during the mid-and late 1960s, when the American public became divided about supporting the war. "The growth in public opposition to the war . . . enhanced draft resistance's appeal," confirmed Tom Wells in The War Within. "Resisters also maintained that noncooperation would increase protestors' credibility with the public. By challenging the government to send them to jail, resisters asserted, they were demonstrating that their opposition to the war sprang not from cowardice or youthful frivolity [silliness]—as supporters of the war often alleged—but from unyielding moral convictions."

David Harris, a draft resister who received a three-year jail sentence for his stance, agreed that active defiance of the Selective Service was a good way to show the American public that the antiwar movement was serious about its beliefs. "One of the first things that opponents of the antiwar movement pointed to was, 'Hey, look, our young men are over in Vietnam dying, and these guys are sitting around smoking dope.'" Harris told Wells. "I felt that in order for the antiwar movement to be effective speaking to that larger audience, it had to pay its own prices and make its own sacrifices and put itself in a position of vulnerability. Because I thought they were right, the critics were."

Between 1965 and 1975, approximately 200,000 Americans were formally accused of draft offenses. But most of these draftees never actually went to trial because the nation's court system was so heavily clogged with draft-related cases. Only 22,000 resisters were actually charged with draft law violations. Of these, 8,756 were convicted of crimes and 4,000 received prison sentences. The percentage of resisters who went to jail, then, was actually quite low. But Wells noted that their willingness to risk imprisonment had a noticeable impact on American society. "Resisters' personal courage increased the peace movement's credibility with some Americans," he wrote in The War Within. "Their sheer numbers nourished public questioning of the war as well. Perhaps most important, the Resistance inspired greater dedication and resolve among other antiwar activists."

Volunteering for service. Approximately 8.7 million men volunteered to join the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, four times the number of troops who were inducted through the Selective Service System. Many of these soldiers enlisted out of a genuine desire to answer America's military call to arms. But millions of the young men who voluntarily enlisted in the armed forces did so in an effort to exercise some control over their fate.

These volunteers recognized that they were exposing themselves to possible combat duty in Vietnam by enlisting. But many of them did so anyway for two major reasons. First, many enlistees came from poor and working-class communities, where knowledge of draft evasion strategies was weak and pressure to serve one's country was strong. Second, many enlistees believed that by volunteering for military service before being drafted, they were more likely to draw relatively safe assignments in Vietnam or at other U.S. bases around the world. Upon enlisting, however, many of these young soldiers still found themselves assigned to combat units in Vietnam.

In 1990 Vietnam veteran Tim O'Brien published "On the Rainy River," a short story that gives a dramatic account of one young man's feelings after being drafted. The story was published in a short story collection called The Things They Carried, a classic work of Vietnam War literature.

Like the other stories in The Things They Carried, "On the Rainy River" is narrated by a character who has the same name as the author. In addition, many of the incidents and places that are described in the short story collection are based on O'Brien's own life. For example, the author actually received a draft notice shortly after graduating from Macalester College in Minnesota, just as the narrator does in "On the Rainy River." But even though many of the people, places, and events described in The Things They Carried closely mirror O'Brien's actual experiences in Vietnam, he describes the story collection as a work of fiction.

Things to remember while reading "On the Rainy River":

• O'Brien was drafted after graduating from Macalester College in Minnesota in 1968. In 1969 he began his tour of duty in Vietnam, where he served in an army infantry unit. When he left Vietnam a year later, he had earned a Purple Heart for being wounded and had been promoted to sergeant. Upon returning to the United States, O'Brien became one of America's leading writers on the Vietnam War and its impact on U.S. soldiers who served there.
• Canada remained officially neutral throughout the Vietnam War, although it provided $9 million to South Vietnam for medical supplies and training. Canada's political leaders did not openly criticize U.S. involvement in the war. But they also made little effort to stop draft evaders from settling within the country's borders, and most Canadian communities welcomed the American exiles.

Excerpt from Tim O'Brien's short story "On the Rainy River":

In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. . . .

The draft notice arrived on June 17, 1968. It was a humid afternoon, I remember, cloudy and very quiet, and I'd just come in from a round of golf. My mother and father were having lunch out in the kitchen. I remember opening up the letter, scanning the first few lines, feeling the blood go thick behind my eyes. I remember a sound in myhead. It wasn't thinking, just a silent howl. A million things all at once—I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, too everything. . . . I was no soldier. I hated Boy Scouts. I hated camping out. I hated dirt and tents and mosquitos. The sight of blood made me queasy, and I couldn't tolerate authority, and I didn't know a rifle from a slingshot. . . . I remember the rage in my stomach. Later it burned down to a smoldering self-pity, then to numbness. At dinner that night my father asked what my plans were. "Nothing," I said. "Wait."

[He spent the summer working in a meat-packing plant in Minnesota.] In the evenings I'd sometimes borrow my father's car and drive aimlessly around town, feeling sorry for myself, thinking about the war and the pig factory and how my life seemed to be collapsing toward slaughter. I felt paralyzed. All around me the options seemed to be narrowing, as if I were hurtling down a huge black funnel, the whole world squeezing in tight. There was no happy way out. The government had ended most graduate school deferments; the waiting lists for the National Guard and Reserves were impossibly long; my health was solid; I didn't qualify for CO status—no religious grounds, no history as a pacifist. Moreover, I could not claim to be opposed to war as a matter of general principle. There were occasions, I believed, when a nation was justified in using military force to achieve its ends, to stop a Hitler or some comparable evil, and I told myself that in such circumstances I would've willingly marched off to the battle. The problem, though, was that a draft board did not let you choose your war. Beyond all this, or at the very center, was the raw fact of terror. I did not want to die. . . .

At some point in mid-July I began thinking seriously about Canada. The border lay a few hundred miles north, an eight-hour drive. Both my conscience and my instincts were telling me to make a break for it, just take off and run like hell and never stop. . . . I couldn't make up my mind. I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile.

I was afraid of walking away from my own life, my friends and my family, my whole history, everything that mattered to me. I feared losing the respect of my parents. I feared the law. I feared ridicule and censure. My hometown was a conservative little spot on the prairie, a place where tradition counted, and it was easy to imagine people sitting around a table down at the old Gobbler Cafe on Main Street, coffee cups poised, the conversation slowly zeroing in on the young O'Brien kid, how the damned sissy had taken off for Canada. . . .

[After weeks of agonizing, he makes a sudden decision to run for Canada. He packs a suitcase and drives north toward the Canadianborder.] It was pure flight, fast and mindless. I had no plan. Just hit the border at high speed and crash through and keep on running. . . . I spent the night in the car behind a closed-down gas station a half mile from the border. In the morning, after gassing up, I headed straight west along the Rainy River, which separates Minnesota from Canada, and which for me separated one life from another. The land was mostly wilderness. Here and there I passed a motel or bait shop, but otherwise the country unfolded in great sweeps of pine and birch and sumac. . . .

[Tired and confused, he rents a room at an old fishing lodge just south of the border. The lodge is owned by a quiet, elderly man named Elroy Berdahl. The two spend the next several days together, sharing meals, hiking through the woods, playing Scrabble, and reading in front of the fireplace.] We spent six days together at the Tip Top Lodge. Just the two of us. Tourist season was over, and there were no boats on the river, and the wilderness seemed to withdraw into a great permanent stillness. . . . One thing for certain, he knew I was in desperate trouble. And he knew I couldn't talk about it. The wrong word—or even the right word—and I would've disappeared. I was wired and jittery. My skin felt too tight. . . . I went through whole days feeling dizzy with sorrow. I couldn't sleep; I couldn't lie still. At night I'd toss around in bed, half awake, half dreaming, imagining how I'd sneak down to the beach and quietly push one of the old man's boats out into the river and start paddling my way toward Canada. . . . It all seemed crazy and impossible. Twenty-one years old, an ordinary kid with all the ordinary dreams and ambitions, and all I wanted was to live the life I was born to—a mainstream life—I loved baseball and hamburgers and cherry Cokes—and now I was off on the margins of exile, leaving my country forever, and it seemed so impossible and terrible and sad.

[He enjoys Elroy's quiet company but remains tormented by the thought of entering Canada to evade the draft.] During that long summer I'd been over and over the various arguments, all the pros and cons, and it was no longer a question that could be decided by an act of pure reason. Intellect had come up against emotion. My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war. What it came down to, stupidly, was a sense of shame. Hot, stupid shame. I did not want people to think badly of me. Not my parents, not my brother and sister, not even the folks down at the Gobbler Cafe. I was ashamed to be there at the Tip Top Lodge. I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the right thing. Some of this Elroy must've understood. Not the details, of course, but the plain fact of crisis.

On my last full day, the sixth day, the old man took me out fishing on the Rainy River. The afternoon was sunny and cold. . . . All around us, I remember, there was a vastness to the world, an unpeopled rawness, just the trees and the sky and the water reaching out toward nowhere. The air had the brittle scent of October. . . . For a time I didn't pay attention to anything, just feeling the cold spray against my face, but then it occurred to me that at some point we must've passed into Canadian waters, across that dotted line between two different worlds, and I remember a certain tightness in my chest as I looked up and watched the far shore come at me. This wasn't a daydream. It was tangible and real. As we came in toward land, Elroy cut the engine, letting the boat fishtail lightly about twenty yards off shore. The old man didn't look at me or speak. Bending down, he opened up his tackle box and busied himself with a bobber and a piece of wire leader, humming to himself, his eyes down.

It struck me then that he must've planned it. I'll never be certain, of course, but I think he meant to bring me up against the realities, to guide me across the river and to take me to the edge and to stand a kind of vigil as I chose a life for myself.

I remember staring at the old man, then at my hands, then at Canada. . . . Twenty yards. I could've done it. I could've jumped and started swimming for my life. Inside me, in my chest, I felt a terrible squeezing pressure. Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it—the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest.

What would you do?

Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?

I tried to swallow it back. I tried to smile, except I was crying. . . .

At the rear of the boat Elroy Berdahl pretended not to notice. He held a fishing rod in his hands, his head bowed to hide his eyes. He kept humming a soft, monotonous little tune. Everywhere, it seemed, in the trees and water and sky, a great worldwide sadness came pressing down on me, a crushing sorrow, sorrow like I had never known it before. And what was so sad, I realized, was that Canada hadbecome a pitiful fantasy. Silly and hopeless. It was no longer a possibility. Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. . . . All those eyes on me—the town, the whole universe—and I couldn't risk the embarrassment. It was as if there were an audience to my life, that swirl of faces along the river, and in my head I could hear people screaming at me. Traitor! They yelled. Turncoat! . . . . I felt myself blush. I couldn't tolerate it. I couldn't endure the mockery, or the disgrace, or the patriotic ridicule. Even in my imagination, the shore just twenty yards away, I couldn't make myself be brave. It had nothing to do with morality. Embarrassment, that's all it was.

And right then I submitted.

I would go to the war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to.

That was the sad thing. And so I sat in the bow of the boat and cried. . . . Elroy Berdahl remained quiet. He kept fishing. He worked his line with the tips of his fingers, patiently, squinting out at his red and white bobber on the Rainy River. . . . Then after a time the old man pulled in his line and turned the boat back toward Minnesota.

I don't remember saying goodbye. That last night we had dinner together, and I went to bed early, and in the morning Elroy fixed breakfast for me. When I told him I'd be leaving, the old man nodded as if he already knew. He looked down at the table and smiled.

At some point later in the morning it's possible that we shook hands—I just don't remember—but I do know that by the time I'd finished packing the old man had disappeared. Around noon, when I took my suitcase out to the car, I noticed that his old black pickup truck was no longer parked in front of the house. I went inside and waited for a while, but I felt a bone certainty that he wouldn't be back. . . . I washed up the breakfast dishes. . . . got into the car, and drove south toward home.

The day was cloudy. I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war.

What happened next . . .

Throughout the course of the Vietnam War, the U.S. government and the legal system made changes to the Selective Service system. Many of these changes were designed to address the charges that the draft rules placed an unfair burden on America's less economically and politically powerful families. But the draft remained controversial, and legal challenges to Selective Service policies made the system increasingly ineffective.

In 1967 deferments for graduate school were eliminated, although students currently enrolled were usually permitted to keep their deferments. Two years later, the government placed additional restrictions on deferments. At the same time, it introduced a random draft lottery in an effort to draw troops more equally from all American communities. But draft evasion remained widespread, overwhelming federal efforts to enforce the Selective Service laws.

Finally, in 1971, President Nixon eliminated student deferments altogether. But by this time the American withdrawal of troops was well underway, so the move did not have a major impact. On January 27, 1973, Nixon formally shut down the Vietnam-era draft for good.

Nixon's decision to end the draft delighted the many Americans who had opposed the war. But it did not end the legal problems of those Americans who had illegally resisted the Selective Service system in one way or another. Approximately 280,000 civilians remained in trouble with the law for their actions. These included convicted draft resisters and men who had moved to Canada or other foreign countries to avoid induction.

Many Americans thought that the federal government should dismiss the charges that these civilians faced and let them resume their lives. Some argued that they should be "pardoned"—forgiven for crimes committed against the government. Others, including many of the draft resisters and evaders, argued that they should receive an "amnesty." Under an amnesty, all legal charges would be dropped, just as with a pardon. But an amnesty was viewed as an admission that the government had been wrong to prosecute the resisters and evaders for following their beliefs.

Not all Americans believed that amnesties or pardons should be granted, however. In fact, political conservatives, veterans groups, and many other Americans thought that the men who had disobeyed their draft orders should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This issue became yet another point of division in American society until 1977, when President Jimmy Carter approved an unconditional amnesty to those who had gotten in legal trouble for their peaceful opposition to the war.

Since Nixon ended the military draft in 1973, the United States has only used volunteers in its armed forces. Since 1980, however, young men have been required to register with the federal government when they turn 18 years old. This law ensures that the government can renew the military draft at any time if necessary.

Did you know . . .

• A 1966 study revealed that only 1.3 percent of draft board members in American communities were black. Women, meanwhile, were prohibited from serving on draft boards altogether until 1967, when Congress changed the rules.
• Approximately 1.4 million young men who were eligible for the draft were excused from serving because they failed intelligence exams.
• College students who posted poor grades ran the danger of losing their deferments and becoming eligible for the draft. This factor made many male students devote more time to their classes. It also put extra pressure on some college professors. They knew that if they gave a student a failing grade, the student might lose his deferment and eventually end up in Vietnam.

Sources

Appy, Christian G. Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Baskir, Lawrence, and William A. Strauss. Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.

Gottlieb, Sherry Gershon. Hell No, We Won't Go: Resisting the Draft during the Vietnam War. New York: Viking, 1991.

Hall, Mitchell. Because of Their Faith: CALCAV and Religious Opposition to the Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

Levy, David W. The Debate Over Vietnam. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

Marrin, Albert. America and Vietnam: The Elephant and the Tiger. New York: Viking, 1992.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.

Tollefson, James W. The Strength Not to Fight: An Oral History of Conscientious Objectors of the Vietnam War. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

Wells, Tom. The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Williams, Roger N. The New Exiles: American War Resisters in Canada. New York: Liveright, 1971.

Avoiding the Draft in North Vietnam

Some North Vietnamese men tried to evade their own country's military draft during the Vietnam War. Many families supported their sons in this effort. Important officials in the government often arranged to keep their sons out of the military by sending them overseas to study. Ordinary families, meanwhile, hid their sons or bribed doctors to disqualify them from service.

"Many parents tried to keep their sons out of the army," recalled one North Vietnamese man in Vietnam: A Portrait of Its People at War. "They would hide them when they were called up by the recruiting center. Anyone who didn't show up automatically had his rice ration cut off. But families would buy food on the black market or just get along by sharing whatever they had. They would survive that way while they tried to scrape up enough to bribe a recruiting official to fix up the files. Other draftees mutilated themselves or managed to find other ways to fail the physical. People with money were able to pay doctors to disqualify their children. These kinds of things were easier to do in the three big cities—Hanoi, Haiphong, and Nam Dinh . . . where the government officials and Party leaders lived. Many of them were looking for ways to keep their children out too. . . . And people had more money in these places, so corruption was more a normal thing. Also, it was simply easier to hide in the cities and there was more information about how to stay out. The result was that the big majority of the Northern army was made up of young people from the countryside. They were just more naive. They believed the propaganda more easily. They didn't have the same chances to get out of it."