Burning A Draft Card Never

After the 1963 assassination of JFK, the United States became more embroiled in the Vietnam civil war.

Support for our involvement was widespread, however according to Wikipedia a twenty-two year-old conscientious objector, Gene Keyes, setting fire to his card on Christmas Day 1964. While the federal government declared the destruction of a draft card a prison able crime. From 1965 to 1973 over 25,000 young men set their draft cards afire.

In 1968 I tried to join the US Marines at 16. My Uncle Jack had served as a combat USMC lieutenant in Korea. The recruiter at Lower Mills, Boston said I was too young to join, but to return the following year when I turned 17. I wasn't interested in fighting the Viet Cong, but getting out of my hometown on the South Shore and away from a Catholic education under the Black Robes.

In May of 1969 I returned as requested. The same recruiter gave me a parental permission slip for a seventeen year-old. My mother, despite being a virulent anti-communist, refused the signature and I was stuck in that town.

In June 1970 I received my draft card and draft lottery number. A very low 96 and the Pentagon had almost a half-million troops in that involvement with no sign of the promised peace. I went to a local college and grew my hair long.

In 1972 then an anti-war hippie I failed Multivariable Calculus in my sophomore year of university. Failing out of college meant loss of my student draft deferment. My Selective Service # was low. 96. An F meant I was Vietnam bound. Professor Remy Marcou took pity. His daughter was my friend and he passed me with a D- on the promise that I drop my math major. Thusly I was spared from the slaughter.

I never burned my draft card, but protested the War as I now protest the current Endless War.I still remember seeing you on the floor outside a BC cafeteria and asking you”What are you doing” Your answer :” I am a dead Vietnamese peasant,sssh” I stepped over you and went to lunch.

I still have it,

ps I left Boston in 1976 never to return, but I named my son Fenway.