I have had great for admiration for Senator Sanders. He as been a steady voice and advocate for the middle-class and an outspoken critic of the excesses of the financial services industry (if it can be called an industry). His persistent alarm about the growing disparity in wealth in this county has served to highlight the issue and bring it forward in the national discussion. And, he has been a tireless and effective advocate for veterans.
One of the things that is often said about the senator is that he has been morally and politically consistent throughout is public life.
That is why I was stunned by his response when Anderson Cooper asked during the October Las Vegas debate “Senator Sanders, tell an American soldier who is watching right now tonight in Afghanistan why you can be commander-in- chief given that you applied for conscientious objector status.”
I found his answer alarmingly unsatisfactory.
"When I was a young man—I'm not a young man today—when I was a young man, I strongly opposed the war in Vietnam. Not the brave men like Jim who fought in that war, but the policy which [sic] got us involved in that war. That was my view then. I am not a pacifist, Anderson. I supported the war in Afghanistan. I supported President Clinton's effort to deal with ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. I support airstrikes in Syria and what the president is trying to do. Yes, I happen to believe from the bottom of my heart that war should be the last resort that we have got to exercise diplomacy. But yes, I am prepared to take this country into war if that is necessary."
What alarmed me more was that there was no follow-up from Cooper or push-back from either Vietnam veteran, Senator Jim Webb or Secretary Clinton.
Whenever this subject has been raised it is generally met with eye-rolling dismissal. It is old news. That was then, what does it have to do with now?
I admit, my reaction is heavily colored by my own experience. In 1969 I was a fifth-year architecture student at the University of Arkansas and was in my last year of eligibility for a student deferment form the draft. I had actively opposed to our involvement in that war. I sang songs and carried signs and read the names of the dead at the November 1969 Vietnam Moratorium.
I had read everything I could get my hands on about the history of Vietnam and the war. I was aware of the long-standing regional divisions within the country and of the economic interests from abroad. I knew of Ho Chi Minh’s experience as an, allegedly, Escoffier-trained pastry chef at sea, in New York, Paris and England. I knew of his political education in France, Russia and China and of the Viet Minh’s resistance to French colonialism and the Japanese occupation during World War II.
I knew that, standing in the back of an open car in 1945, Ho had proclaimed Vietnamese Independence, beginning with the familiar phrase. “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
I also knew of the assurances the Roosevelt administration had made to support Vietnamese independence by preventing the re-establishment of French colonial rule after the war and of Truman’s betrayal of those assurances.
Mostly, I knew that I wanted no complicity in this national misadventure and that I didn’t want to die.
Since I would be losing my deferment soon and would be thrown into the draft pool, I explored my options — none of them attractive. I could, as George W. Bush did, join the National Guard with the assurance that, unlike today, I would not be deployed to combat. However, that would be an overt complicitious self-serving act requiring long-term participation in a system I opposed. Besides, there were few slots available since they were in such high demand. I could get married and quickly father a child, which did not seem to be an attractive proposition. I could leave the country, if called, leading to all sorts of unknown consequences. If drafted, I could resist in an expression of civil disobedience and find myself in Leavenworth. I could gamble that I would draw a high number in the upcoming lottery and be home free.
Or, I could declare myself a Conscientious Objector.
Claiming Conscientious Objector status, however, would have been a lie. To do so would require that I assert that I was not just opposed to this war and my participation in it, but that I was constitutionally opposed a all war and the bearing of arms under any circumstances. I would have had to submit evidence, supported by witnesses, that my beliefs were morally or religiously based and that they had been long-standing, as evidenced by my lifestyle prior to making the claim. The Selective Service states that the claim cannot be “based on politics, expediency, or self-interest”. It cannot be selective or conditional. I tried to convince myself that I met the criteria, but I knew I didn’t.
The only and least ethically compromising choice, I reasoned, was to do nothing voluntarily that supported the war or our involvement in it.
On December 1, 1969 the first draft lottery was held and I drew the number 2.
The following spring my deferment expired and I was drafted and inducted into the US Army on September 12, 1970. After training as a radio-teletype operator I was assigned to the 6/32 Field Artillery Regiment, headquartered in Phan Rang Vietnam and served on firebases near the Laotian border and the DMZ. I served honorably and with distinction, along with thousands of other young men who, like Senator Sanders, “strongly opposed the war in Vietnam” and the policies that got us involved in that war. Some of those young men, whose beliefs were just as strongly held as the senator’s, did not come home.
I was under no delusion that I was making the world safe for democracy or that I was keeping any dominos from falling. If I died, it wouldn’t have been protecting our freedoms. I would just be dead. I do believe, however, that my participation and that of others who shared my perspective served to mitigate some of the damage caused by that war.
Others have, and will, criticize my decisions as lacking moral courage or for just being a tool for the Man, but that is not important. The important thing is that the context of the times forced thousands of young men, including Secretary Clinton’s husband, to deeply examine their core beliefs and find their moral centers when there were no good or easy choices.
So, if Senator Sanders is to be taken at his word that he opposed the war based on policy and that he is not a pacifist, there are only two possibilities that account for his status as a Contentious Objector.
The first is that he was legitimately opposed to the use of military force under any circumstances founded on long-standing and deeply held personal convictions. His campaign has stated that "As a college student in the 1960s he was a pacifist, [He] isn't now."
If that is the case, then there must have been some epiphanic experience that precipitated a fundamental change in his core beliefs. It would be constructive for the electorate to know what experience had such a profound effect on a man known for being steadfast in his moral consistency.
The only other possibility was that Senator Sanders secured his Conscientious Objector status falsely, “based on politics, expediency, or self-interest” and counter to the Supreme Court’s ruling that the exemption "applies to those who oppose participating in all war and not to those who object to participation in a particular war only”.
