I was in my teens and early twenties during the Vietnam War and had three experiences with American draft dodgers that I've never forgotten.
Our family had our photo taken with a tour group on our 1969 vacation.
The first happened in an American Denny's Restaurant on a family vacation in 1969. While we were eating the military police came in and arrested a young man sitting at a nearby table with a pregnant woman. My parents said he must have been a deserter or a draft dodger. That experience inspired a story in my latest novel Sixties Girl.
Photo at one of my service job assignment locations in 1971
The second experience with draft dodgers happened in the summer of 1971 when I had a job leading service camps for Mennonite teenagers.
My first posting was in Denver and our group was being sponsored by the Arvada Mennonite Church so that's where I went right after my plane landed in Denver.
When my taxi pulled up in front of the church it was surrounded by protestors with placards, police officers and military personnel. Turns out the church was giving sanctuary to draft dodgers and a stand off was in progress.
My friend and I set up and ran a nursery school class for our Early Childhood practicum. My friend brought her little daughter along to school sometimes too.
My third experience with draft dodgers was during my year of Early Childhood Education at the University of Manitoba. Two women in my class were married to draft dodgers.
One became a close friend. She lived only a few blocks from me and in return for me babysitting her little daughter she gave me free rides to the university and to the Winnipeg school where we were teaching partners for the practicum part of our program.
I remember my friend telling me about some of the challenges she and her husband faced being away from their families and not being allowed to go back into the United States to visit for fear her husband would be arrested.
There were some 300,000 draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. Up to 40,000 of them came to Canada.
Jimmy Carter pardoned the Vietnam War draft dodgers in 1977.
Other posts.........
Autographs from A Conscientious Objectors Camp
Images From Ru
Team Work
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