I'm working on some life history stuff regarding my first marriage. I cannot remember specifically if missionaries were given draft deferments during the Vietnam war in the 60's. I believe students were but I can't confirm that either.

Anyone who is as old as me got any better recollection of this time?

I do not know what the rules were then.

I do know ETB was leading enough of a charge against the commie boogie man that is certainly would give the appearance of evil to demand other's kids go to war while sending Mormon kids on a sales mission.

If the LDS organization wants to keep up their appearances of hyper patriotic nationalism, perhaps the Bretheren should pick up a rifle themselves and send their own Mormon kids to war.

My draft board was in Minnesota; they gave me a deferment, but probably didn't have a clue about LDS missions.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2016 04:54PM by GNPE.

I think that was in the 67-71 Era of the war. I heard about this because my cousin got our ward's mission call and opportunity to tract in the bible belt as opposed to Da Nang. I think later in the war there was no ward quota, but it was best to get out town quickly when you turned 19.

Here ya go...

I don't remember exactly when I registered for the draft. Obviously it had to be after my 18th birthday, in 1963, because that was the law. I don't recall carrying a draft card in my wallet, don't recall what my status was listed as.

Then when I got my call, I was told to tell my local draft board and got a card listing my status as 4D, a ministerial rating. I was a religious person!

Then I got home from my mission and the church arranged for me to go directly to the Y, and when notified, my draft board sent me a draft board card with 2S status noted, for being in 'collich'.

And then in early 1968 I got a letter from them telling me that on my 24th birthday I would be reclassied as 1A, that the 2S rating only lasted until that birthday.

Then a couple of months after my birthday, and the receipt of the 1A draft card, I was told to report for my draft physical. I mentioned this to my bishop, since as his EQP, I thought maybe he might have some advice, he said, 'don't worry' and next thing I knew, I had an appointment with a orthopedic specialist.

I'd had a medial menisectomy in 1961 (when they did REAL surgery, not this phussy punch a few holes stuff!) and while it had never given me a minutes trouble, I was suddenly hoping that maybe that might be a way out. But the orthopedist said he found something better: spina bifida oculta!!! How cool was that! He said, "I'm sure it's true that you've never been athletic..." and I knew to nod my head.

So he wrote a nice letter which I sent to my draft board, for them to put in my file, and had a copy to take with me to the physical. And at the physical I was laughed at, and my classification remained 1A. And then I got drafted, and told to report to an induction center. I appealed, based on being in school, and married, with a pregnant wife. Too bad, so sad, they said. I appealed up the ladder, and my final hearing was set for the Thursday after the Monday night of the first draft lottery.

That's the only lottery I ever won. Well, second place, but I was okay. My birthday was on a slip of paper in a capsule, and there were only two capsules in the big jar when the guy reached in and pulled it out.

I walked around the Y campus waiting to be interviewed... No one gave a shit. I never did bear my testimony that ghawd had worked a miracle for me.

I was in the mission field in Brasil when they had a draft lottery and IIRC that was early 1970. I still had about 10 months to go and there was no talk that we had to go home to be drafted.

I had #57 (still remember to this day, somebody in the mission home posted a copy of the list from I think the international edition of the New York Times).

When I got home in November 1970, I had to report to the draft board. I don't remember exactly what happened, but soon enough I had to take a draft physical.

After I had the physical, with about half the crowd wearing G's and half not, a few weeks later, I got a letter one day saying that my blood pressure was reported as very high so I'd have to go to a Dr and have another test.

Long story short (too late, huh?), they turned me down due to my blood pressure and to this date, I still take meds for hypertension. I was so thrilled to get out of going to Vietnam.

While I was gone, my brother's stepson, 1 year old than me, got drafted when his dad wouldn't pay for his college and was killed in Vietnam about 3 weeks after arriving there.

There's was at least 2 guys I went to high school with who didn't survive. I also seem to remember there was a missionary who went home not long after I got there in 1968 and got sent to Vietnam and also didn't make it.

From what I understand, the church would be allowed to give out two ministerial deferments for each ward. I would've bet that was interesting to see the politics involved in who they gave that out to.

Despite that rule most young Mormon men beat the draft by joining the National Guard or Army Reserve. If you belonged to the guard or reserves you would not have been drafted.Most guys would join their senior year of High School and attend basic training and MOS training immediately after then go on their missions still undraftable due to being in the guard. They get home and resume their active drilling status and never worry about a draft deferment.

I had an instructor at Snow College that had been a commander of a guard unit during the Vietnam War. He said he lost a lot of respect for many Mormon parents that would call him to try and pull strings to get their sons moved up on the waiting list to get in the unit. During Vietnam the guard and most reserve units actually had a waiting list to get in.

Memory is a treacherous thing! When MMYN said he thought the draft lottery was in early 1970, I looked it up, because in my mind it was in early 1969, before my first child was born. But he was right! So in actuality, I had a wife AND kid when I was appealing, not just a pregnant wife.


Here's what Wiki says:

"On December 1, 1969, the Selective Service System of the United States conducted two lotteries to determine the order of call to military service in the Vietnam War for men born from 1944 to 1950. These lotteries occurred during "the draft"—a period of conscription, controlled by the President, from just before World War II to 1973.

"The lottery numbers assigned in December 1969 were used during calendar year 1970 both to call for induction and to call for physical examination, a preliminary call covering more men."
--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_(1969)

Probably 99.9% of us didn't know about the second lottery that night, which was for pulling letters of the alphabet, so that if two kids named Johnson were born on the same date, the order of calling them depended on their first name initials.

My brother was. If it hadn't of been for him going on a mission, he would have went to Nam for sure. By the time he got home the draft had ended.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2016 05:50PM by madalice.

Just before my mission (1972) I found out my draft lottery number was 38, which meant I would definitely have been drafted if it were not for the ministerial deferment I got for going on the mission. While I was out the draft ended in 1973, so when I came home I was not drafted.
I had actually planned on going on a mission all along and while I was out there I was stuck with a few draft dodgers who didn't really want to be there.

Thank you. I thought that was the case. I do remember the lottery. My ex's companion got #5 or something really low. I don't remember him going to Viet Nam though, so I don't know what happened there. My ex's lottery number was something like 355.

I had several high school friends who were drafted but none was LDS so I wouldn't know about any "mission deferrments". I did know some who did not make it home :(

When he got back it was hanging over his head. He signed up for three years in '67, thinking that doing so would keep him out of Nam. Turns out he was just lucky, and was sent elsewhere.

This may sound cynical...

Two of my cousins joined for three years and went to Europe.

It occurred to me that the army could pretty much count on draftees not reenlisting, so they got to go to 'Nam, whereas the enlistees MIGHT re-up, so you wouldn't want to 'waste' their talents, and the time and money invested in them by sending them to 'Nam.

I don't know which ones had been drafted.

I have no input on the above subject,I just wanted to give a little recognition to a fallen soldier and good man named JP Jensen (Tremonton,Ut)killed in the Qu.N. province of South Vietnam in 1969.

I was on my mission from June 1971 to 1973. I knew I had a ministerial draft deferment, but I have no idea how it was handled. I didn't personally do anything to get it. It was done on my behalf, behind the scenes. I assume the church took care of it. My lottery number was 8. I knew I would be drafted when I finished my mission. But the draft was ended while I was on my mission. Getting the news was the happiest day of my mission, even better than going home.

Because of where the church sent me, I joke that I avoided the draft by going to Canada.