Tom Tancredo is a Big War Advocate But Was a Vietnam War Draft Dodger Due to Claims of Depression

David T. Gray, SSGT, USAF 67-71

Just to name a few Bill O'Reilled Up, Tush Limpballs, Dennie Hazzard, Trent The Cheerleader Lott, Sean InsHannity, Neil BoreZ, Hot Tub Tom Delay, Dick Cheezy, Paul Wolfowitz, Goodtime Billy Crystal, Doug Feith, KKKarl Rove, Elliot Abrams, Donnie-Boy Rumpsmells, our Duhhhmander-And-Thief...

Strip them naked, no CC's, no PC's, no cell, no patchcards, no sunglasses. Put a dollar bill up their butts, dump them out over Baghdad with this sole exhortation:

SURVIVE!

Do you think every American could recognize them? We have the Four Stooge Network

Do you think every Iraqi would recognize them? They have Al-Jazeera

Now that's a movie about the War In Iwreck that would have an audience.

Are sorry excuses for men. I did 21 years and 4 months in the Navy. This included two tours in the 'Nam. I didn't volunteer for either of those tours. I was just lucky, I guess. My second tour was cut short when it was discovered my brother & I were there at the same time, and we both got transferred out. Who hasn't been depressed? It depresses me that a homicidal moron is impersonating our president, but I'll be damned if I try to use this to avoid my responsibilities.

Where does this presumption that Tancredo WASN'T actually depressed come from? Let's be careful not to assume things. Mental illness in this country is a very serious problem and we risk trivializing it here.

We could say he's a chickenhawk, or that he faked it, or maybe that this proves he really IS crazy. But how about presuming that he really did (or does) suffer from a legitimate illness? Then let's take him to task for not introducing some legislation to fix the desperately broken mental health care system in this country! That would prove that he understands the issue (as he would if he'd really had this horrible illness) and that he cares to do something so other American kids don't suffer like he did.

Let's try to think constructively people!!!

Back then, vulnerability to being drafted ended at age 26. As a practical matter, it ended at 23 or 24, unless you had your time extended by getting a deferment.

A 1-Y (medical) or 2-S (student) deferment meant that your eligibility for conscription was deferred for a year. That's deferred, not eliminated. People who had deferments had the deferred years tacked on to the end of their eligibility period. Just what I wanted: being on the cannon fodder menu for an indefinite number of years into the future.

My 1-Y was because of a linebacker's knee. Torn cartiledge was significant back then because the very expensive corrective surgery involved opening up the knee.... resulting in a long recovery. I could afford neither the surgery nor the time off from work.

Most of the doctors who conducted the pre-induction physicals had little sympathy for the fact that I couldn't run. Their concern was when I was going to get the injury fixed (on my nickel, of course). So they kept on deferring me. And I kept on delaying the surgery. Every year I was called in for a pre-induction physical, and every year I failed.

One year I tried a pre-emptive strike :0) I figured that if I had to go in, I should do it in style. I aced all of the mental tests, and the Navy eagerly took me in and had me in line for Officer Candidate School and a shot at Flight Training. Duh-0h! I flunked the physical. I offered to let the Navy pay for my surgery. They weren't buying. Who would have thunk it?

There was a method to my madness. Using the Navy's rejection, and armed with the arthrograms of my knee (this was before MRIs were available), I appealed my 1-Y, trying to get a 4-F: "unfit for military service." It didn't work. They kept my head on the chopping block.

Having the draft hanging over my head made job-hunting difficult, so I kicked around in jobs for which I was way over-qualified. Finally, when I was 27(!) a doctor took pity on me and granted me a 4-F. His comment was something like "I'll bet you'd like to get on with your life..."

That same year, the "lottery" started. My birthday drew a number in the 300s. My chances of getting drafted were zilch. Basically, under the new rules, it was one strike and you're out. If they didn't get you that year, you could kiss off the joys of boot camp and jungle rot. No more waiting every year to find out.

What's odd about the whole thing - given Tancredo's revelation, was that I had battled depression since before I was 10.... it wasn't diagnosed as depression, and depression barely qualified as a disease. People referred to me as melancholy and moody, lazy, unpredictable, occasionally catatonic, and frequently as an anatomical object in one's more southerly places. I was hard-pressed to get references to put on job applications.

If only I had known 1) that I was half-crazy (and twice as often) and 2) that the insanity defense would hold up, my life would have been much better back then.

Epilogue: as Paul Simon said "still crazy after all these years."

PS: unlike Tancredo (and my school buddy Rohrabacher, and Cheney, and on and on) I never was a hawk. And I don't plan on starting soon :0)

This piece of work, he was not depressed - he was scared shi**less. Not so scary when you are sending others to fight your battles is it big boy.

Those who never serve should never be able to send anyone into harms way. I.E.: dumbya, cheney, flush limbauw, kkkarl rove etc.

Got drafted at 19, best thing that ever happened to me. Depressed? Sure, when I was a teen I was depressed too, treated mine with drugs and alchohol like a lot of folks did.

I liked being part of the big green machine. Especially liked Da Nang (and NKP, where I spent a lot of time).

Guess the difference between me and Tancredo is best summed up by a line from a song...

"Rich man goes to college, poor man goes to war..."

Mike V.
Behind Enemy Lines
In Phoenix, AZ

I think Bay is correct when she says "Tancredo represents an entire movement". What comes to mind is a full toilet. Immigration is sinking this country at a rate that can't be fathomed. We are being destyoyed economically and culturally. It's just a matter of time. But that is the plan of those who wish to enslave us. Do the math. The Southern Poverty and Law Center have been exposed long ago as slugs.Especially Morris Dees. Google it.

If treatment for mental illness was enough to disqualify Tom Eagleton as v-p, shouldn't the same standard apply to Tom Tancredo?

Boy was I depressed when I drew single digits in the draft lottery in '69.

To thekidde and BobHiggins:

Welcome home, my brothers.

I was drafted out of college in March of 1966 (too much skiing in the Utah mts., not enough trig.). I volunteered for OCS (Officer Candidate School) and was commissioned a 2d Lt. Infantry in March of 1967. By late Fall of 1967 I was an executive officer in a rifle company outide of Chu Lai, South Vietnam. I served a full tour as an XO and Plt. Ldr. I lost some good friends and had my attitude adjusted as far as politics, war and cowards.

BushCo, all of them, should be sent to Iraq with inadequate body armor and made to drive around for a couple of months. Those who survive can come back and see if they really like war as much as they do now. Oh, Jenna and Barbara have to go to. Let Shrub worry about his kids getting blown up. Cheney's kids, too. Tancredo has to be the driver - depression? - screw him.

Interesting stuff.

As I recall 1-Y was a temporary defferment. I got a 1-Y for a broken clavical but was told I'd have to come back for my 1-A when it healed. Luckily for me someone burned down my draft board (99 on Chicago Ave in Evanston) and they lost ALL records. I digress...

Point is that it might be interesting to see the timeline on that 1-Y. Ok, Just a nit but you never know what you'll find when you dig.

WE HAVE FOUND THE GROWTH ON CHENEY'S ASS..
....TURNS OUT TO BE TANCREDO

Between Danang and ChuLai I spent a year in that Asian paradise and I was depressed the whole time, hmmm... now that I think about, it so was every body else, my fellow Marines, officers and enlisted, the VC, the peasants, the Saigon whores .. there was a lot of "depression" going on. Tancredo would have fit right in if he had had the "opportunity."

Someone said one time that "War is Hell," that's true, its also depressing.

I hate chicken hawks.

Bob Higgins
http://worldwide-sawdust.com