Posted on 07/07/2006 12:00:44 PM PDT by siddude
CASTLEGAR, British Columbia -- For Craig Wiester of Minneapolis, fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam war meant losing a country, a way of life - and his father.
"He felt it was a man's duty to go when his country called," Wiester said Thursday at the opening of a four-day reunion and peace event to honor U.S. draft resisters who fled to Canada and the Canadians who assisted them.
Organizers were expecting hundreds of draft resisters and their Canadian supporters to attend the gathering, which includes workshops and panel discussions at Selkirk College and the nearby Brilliant Cultural Center in this town about 120 miles north of Spokane, Wash.
Speakers and participants include former U.S. Sen. George McGovern, 83, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972 who lost to Richard Nixon; former California state Sen. Tom Hayden, an anti-war student activist during the 1960s; and Arun Ghandi, grandson of Mahatma Ghandi.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...
What a helluva thing to be proud of.
Sheez!
Bill Clinton feels left out. He loathes the past.
Fear not!! His people are busy rewriting it.
I wonder if they will offer any thoughts of appreciation to the men who went and died in their place -- that they may have the right to be a coward?
F'em all, including Carter that pardoned them, Clinton that should go to Canada and celebrate with his fellow draft dodgers and Kerry who figured out a Three Purple Heart scam to dodge the war zone in 4 months and build a career telling lies about the war and the men who fought it...
F'em all.
Semper Fi
"I wanted to validate the experience." What an a-hole. He wanted to validate the moment he turned his back on his country, his family and himself.
Sounds like this guy is heavily into great, big rationalizations. He needs'em.
You forgot to mention Hanoi Jane.
Bill conducted his own draft-avoidance studies in the UK.
I heard they were having the reunion in B.C. and I thought, "Not far enough. Bomb 'em back to the Stone Age."
I cant imagine taking their kids to this cowards convention.
That's the first I've seen such a letter. Is it authentic?
I have a cousin among them. He left after graduating college. His father was a career Army officer, serving during three wars.
My cousin was never drafted, so he could freely return to the US, but stayed and changed to a Canadian citizen.
He is about 62 years old today, but intellectually he has not developed beyond 60s hippie anti-war nonsense. He can rant all the predictable left-socialist mantras.
I met and spoke with him five years ago, a few weeks before 9/11/2001. It was disappointing.
At the time I got my draft notice in December 1968 I knew of my cousin in Canada. Unlike him, I reported and served my time. To this day I consider my service as a one of the few but most defining times of a lifetime.
I'll give him one thing. He is a western individualist, making his home in Kelowna, BC. Cold winters with wood burning fires. He is an artist. It is hard to make a good living as an artist, so I expect it is comforting to have socialized medicine, for example.
His son studied business at University of British Columbia, and stayed on to live in Victoria. I can see why somebody would stay in Victoria--nice place.
The son could become a US citizen, as both parents were US citizens at the time of his birth.
Your craftsmanship is far superior to that crackpot who scammed CBS and Dan Rather.
They missed a couple of guests to keep with the motif. Of course I'm talking about Chicken Man and Super Chicken.
My view is also that the "peace" and "anti war" movement was not those things. But it was I think, not even an anti draft movement, but a socialist movement, and thus an anti American movement. It's probably true that a popular following was able to be developed simply because of a desire to avoid risking life and limb in a war about which most cared little, but the organizers were, I believe, all committed leftists, many even having been raised as communists.
The same type of people are now protesting the Iraq war, committed leftists all. Before WWII, there was also an "anti war" movement, probably also led by the Left. The national media, being leftist itself, has consistently neglected pointing out, both during the 60's and today, the socialist origins of the so called anti war organizers.
Read the last line of the letter.
I live in the West Kootenays, home to thousands of these characters. Almost every community here has a large faction of "watermelons" led by these Yankee "idealists".
At least they aren't erecting a statue to the 'dodgers in Nelson. That was last year's plan.
In the Believe It Or Not file, I actually meet the odd old hippie who likes George Bush.
Maybe they had other priorities.
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