Powell on National Guard service

A posting on democratic underground reminded me about this passage from Colin Powell's autobiography, about the way we supplied troops for the VN war:

"I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war. The policies -- determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -- were an antidemocratic disgrace. I can never forgive a leadership that said, in effect: These young men -- poorer, less educated, less privileged -- are expendable, but the rest are too good to risk. I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well placed and many professional athletes managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country."