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Draft Dodgers, Heroes and Hypocrites

By Bill Branson

Bill Branson
National Staff

Let us make a comment, as combat veterans, on the attacks against political candidates for being 'draft-dodgers.'

Will we forget the war criminals who callously sent us to die. For 'democracy' while they persecuted those who risked their lives to end the war.

What is so foul about self preservation? Why should a young man choose a horrible, despised death? For the "American Way", which the enlightened youth perceived as a plastic existence, designed to justify caving in to lives of slavery to the rich. For 'democracy' which was instructed with all the trappings and excesses of the fascism their parents fought against in WWII?

How the coddled flunkies of the rich despise those 'draft dodgers, protestors,etc' who resisted! As is some aspect of cowardice should be attached to the millions of people who dared the brutal armerment of the state when they took to the streets.

We are sickened by the outright murders the state committed at Jackson State, Kent State..etc. It is beyond our ability to count the number of jailings, beatings, the water hosing, electric cattle prods, tear gas.., brutal arrests, and searches amounting to little less than rape, which were liberally applied to those who dared to oppose the war.

Have we forgotten the pervasive repression, spying, espionage, provocation carried out by the FBI, CIA etc. How 'activists' were hounded from their jobs, black listed, investigated by secret agencies, such as the Chicago Red Squad, which were beyond the law?

Which of these brave patriots would even risk the disfavor of their rich patrons with a mild disagreement over the placement of a toxic waste site? Are the paid toadies of the rich to define our heroes and cowards? When are the blinker eyed servants of the rich like Strom Thurmond more abject than when, on their knees, they serve their rich patrons? How many of them nurse the wounds of war? Are their dreams haunted with any more fearsome ordeal than an irate phone call from Wall Street?

When men and women cast aside the respect of their families, abandoned their education, placed themselves lists of the secret police in order to publicly resist an unjust and deadly tyranny, Were they acting any differently than those who rose up against the so called "communist" governments in Eastern Europe?

Were we veterans supposed to hold in contempt those who fought so boldly to save our lives? They liked rock and roll and free love. More importantly, they hated the same things we did. We hated the autocratic rule of the brass.

Our angry response was to join that movement. We lent it a vigor and impact, unseen in US streets since the 1930's. We found a welcome in the 'left' unmatched by business, government, or all too often, at home. We found comrades in that movement, both to teach and learn from.