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Donny Dump Draft Dodger 1966

By Bill Johnston

I noticed a poll the other day stating a "majority" of veterans supported Donald Trump. A mind blowing statistic too horrible to contemplate. For two very personal reasons I found what was reported disgusting and beyond any understanding. Why would any veterans support such a corrupt, immoral sexist and racist lying "scum-sucker?" (To use an appropriate USAF term).

Let me return you to the days of the military draft. It is February of 1966 and I have just lost my student deferment. I no longer have a II-S student draft registration—I am now 1A! After a chat with my local draft board lady, I was informed I would be drafted at the end of the academic year in June. I read after Trump became our UN-ELECTED president he lost his student deferral the same time I did.

Few Americans at this time realized how quickly the Johnson Administration was building up the military as they dug a deeper disastrous hole for themselves in Vietnam. This is how the system worked. You got drafted for two years—went to basic training—on to advanced infantry training , handed an M-16 and shipped to Vietnam. By the end of the year, the casualty list grew by the hundreds and a total of 58,000 before the US was forced out.

I admit I was not against the war at this time but I did have questions. I come from a family that has not been able to avoid war-time military service since the American Revolution. I had two great grandfathers in the Union Army and my Dad was in the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. My brother was already in the Sea Bees in Vietnam. I joined the Air Force.

Donald Trump's father paid off a doctor to claim his boy had bone spurs and so was 4-F (medically deferred). I had friends who opposed the war and obtained objector status and worked in community based alternatives around the country. Unlike Trump, they were not dishonest nor were they cowards. A draftee in 1966 was on his way to a rice paddy weapon in hand for a year and we all knew it! TRUMP WAS A DESPICABLE COWARD!

About this time my brother was climbing a telephone pole just out of Da Nang Air Base when he was shot at and had to jump from the top of the pole. His back never recovered. My nineteen-year-old brother Tim was killed in a shipboard accident on the USS Hancock. During this time Trump bragged because thousands of young men were in the military overseas he had more women available to have sex with here at home. Who votes or supports this loathsome creature? Yet I have noticed the VFW and American Legion invite him to their conventions every year and give him a wild welcome. Any veteran who supports Trump should hang their head in dishonor.

My working class parents "donated" four sons to the military during the Vietnam War. They lost one. Another was seriously injured for life. They did not have the financial resources to pay off a doctor to lie for any of us not did they lacked the morality the Trump family display they completely lack.

Even more despicable than Trump himself is the Republican Party. He is just the scum on the surface of a corrupt political organization. Why would any Veteran vote Republican?

Currently, all Veteran Benefit improvements are being held up by the right-wing Republican Senate. At no time in our history has the Republican Party supported Veterans. What they have done has been a "no questions asked give-a-way" to the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us against as it eats up the majority of tax dollars while the infra-structure of our country falls apart.

Is that what a majority of Veterans support? If they do someone is not getting the word out to them!

Bill Johnston served in the US Air Force—1966-70—SGT.-Legal Specialist with the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate. Bachelor of Arts (History and Journalism), Master of Arts (Political Science) Western Washington University. Retired Staff - United Food and Commercial Workers Union (AFL-CIO).