We had a draft. So are you admitting a draft is wrong? If a soldier says now, "I was wrong, I don't agree with our fight over there and refuse to go"...he's sent to prison because he chooses life. Why should he be punished for choosing his life?
Those are the rules the soldier agreed to....if you sign a contract & then decide you don't like the terms...you don't get out of it without consequences. As for the draft, we are a nation of laws & the law was passed authorizing a draft so it was not wrong. It was agreed upon by those we elected. That is how our system works. If you don't like it, then campaign to change the laws you don't like.
'he's sent to prison because he chooses life. Why should he be punished for choosing his life?'
No, he is sent to prison for being a coward.
I lived with a WWII soldier for the first 18 yrs. of my life. He was drafted into the Army. He was working in a furniture company, was a talented carpenter, for a very wealthy man with much influence who told him, "If you don't want to go I can fix this for you and you don't have to go." My father went back to his room that night and thought on the affinity he had for being able to look himself in the face in the mirror every morning. He went back in to work the next morning and told the man, "I've made my decision. I have to like the man I see in the mirror first thing every morning. I am reporting to the Army. Thank you, anyway."
He thought of me, not yet born, and of you and of many thousands of those yet unborn who would have to live under the bootheel of Hitler and the Third Reich (if they were allowed to live at all) if Hitler won that war. So, he went, and he fought like the man and the soldier that he was. He earned a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and a Presidential Unit Citation for bravery fighting with the Blue Devils (named by the Panzers themselves because they fought the Germans like devils) at Laiatico, Italy, in N. Africa, Sicily and then, finally, Germany liberating the death camps.
It was a price, don't get me wrong. Old soldiers are precious. When you see one, say "thank you", and if you are an American, be thankful you don't have to say, "danke for giving it the old college try and failing". Say, "thank you for winning that damn war"! Make no mistake about it, the bootheel was aiming straight for our necks.