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Reflections on Resisting the Draft: Connecting to Vietnam Veterans

By Ted Scharf

The most important part of this 50 plus year journey is to connect with Vietnam veterans in a respectful, supportive, and not offensive fashion. How can we best communicate across the fundamental differences we experienced more than 50 years ago?

1969 – 1972: When I first enrolled in college, I had been accepted for NROTC. The summer before college, I got to know some Quakers in the Philly area. When I showed up on campus, my hair had grown a bit longer. I spoke with someone at the NROTC office, saying, "I think this is not going to work." He took one look at me and agreed. Outside of classes, I spent that year learning to be a draft counselor. That is when my personal decision-making began.

I was daunted by the US Army's requirement that field medics are expected to treat wounded soldiers who can be most quickly restored to fighting effectiveness first rather than to prioritize the most seriously wounded. I realized that I could not comply with such a requirement. And I was too young to understand that no one would be looking over my shoulder in the middle of a firefight. (More generally, I expect that I would have been shitting my pants after the first gunshot and not be effective for anything. Fortunately, I have not had to answer that question.)

I was in an engineering program that first year, and by the middle of the second semester, I realized that I did not want to be an engineer. More importantly, I was unsure what to study, so I quit college temporarily. I lost my II-S deferment and was re-classified I-A. But I had some time to think. (This was an important and unanticipated gift from the II-S.) Within about six months, I resolved to resist the draft. (I had sufficient contacts in my Church to likely be able to qualify as a conscientious objector, i.e., I-O.) Instead, I resolved that our government should not take me, and it should not take anyone. Further, the US is my country, too, and I was not interested in relocating to Canada or Sweden. (I am sure every Vietnam veteran remembers the slogan: "My country, right or wrong." And: "America, love it or leave it.").

My father was a WWII veteran. He was a second lieutenant in the Army infantry, slated for the invasion of Japan. The atomic bombs were dropped while he was on pre-embarkation leave. He spent a year with the US occupation forces in Okinawa and, in the subsequent twenty years, in the US Army Reserve. Approximately one full year after I told my father I had decided to resist the draft, he told me something I will never forget. (He was much more religious than I.) He said he supposed that he understood how someone raised as I was could make such a decision. This is perhaps the greatest of the gifts that he ever gave me.

1973–present: I came along very late in the Vietnam War. I was convicted for resisting the draft in November 1972 and sentenced during Kissinger's Christmas bombing of North Vietnam. My sentence was four years' probation with alternate service. According to Chance and Circumstance: The Draft, the War, and the Vietnam, I am one of about 5,000 men in our generation convicted for resisting the draft and one of about 10,000 known resisters. Thus, collectively, draft resisters did very little to stop the war. It was the millions of young men (aka., "draft dodgers") who were awarded legal deferments and exemptions who denied the manpower to keep expanding the US commitment to prosecute that war. My judge let me off after three years and three months of alternate service. However, I was still performing my service when Nixon resigned and Saigon fell. I did not apply for the Ford and Carter amnesties/pardons. At that time, I understood we had to say we were "sorry" and would never do it again.

I say to any Vietnam veteran I meet that I had it very easy. I did not have anyone shooting at me, and I did not have to shoot at anyone. I did not lose any friends. Further, I had some great jobs and met some wonderful people. (Yes, I had to report to a probation officer and all that stuff, but it was all just minor bureaucracy.) Even better, I transferred to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Antioch's established co-op program allowed me to work full-time and study part-time. When it got to be too much, I would take a break from my studies and just do the work. One consequence of this strategy was that my judge tried to require me to remain at a co-op posting in Minnesota beyond the scheduled six months.

Years later, after deciding to continue on a post-graduate degree, I completed a Ph.D. in Social Ecology (emphasis: environmental psychology) at UC Irvine. This qualified me for a job at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) within Health and Human Services. The irony of ironies is that I must have passed the FBI background check! The second irony is that many of my early co-workers were men of our generation who received a draft deferment or exemption or were commissioned in the US Public Health Service.

I have always been concerned about meeting veterans without them knowing about my refusal. NIOSH (as everywhere in the government) hired many veterans, so whenever I learned that a co-worker was a Vietnam vet, I made it a point to let him know about my resistance/felony/refusal. I did not want this co-worker to learn about my draft status from someone else, as though I were hiding it. Also, this is not about pride or anything like it. I was fortunate to have a long exposure to events (i.e., very late in the war), a supportive Church community (for example, my bishop attended my trial), and then the time to think before resisting the draft.

The first Vietnam veteran I met was a fellow UC Irvine grad student and former Marine at an artillery base in I Corps. He taught me a great deal about the conditions that he experienced. He and I visited the Wall in DC together for the first time in the fall of 1990. He took me to the engraving of his deceased friend. Since then, I have never been to DC without visiting the Wall. I regard it as a sacred space.

I am not seeking closure; I do not want to offend anyone. There have been some Vietnam veterans who reacted quite negatively when they learned of my status. I do not wish to remind them of the friends that they lost. I do not want to raise disturbing memories of my presence. The Vietnam War was a period in our lives that no one of us can ever forget. But fully understanding this period, personally and for our entire generation, is an elusive goal.

Ted Scharf was convicted on two counts of resisting the draft in November 1972 and sentenced to 4 years' alternate service on probation in December 1972. He recently retired from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health after 30 years as a research psychologist.

The Vietnam Wall, 2008.