Vice President Cheney and his staff refused to answer the Los Angeles Times' questions about the Veep's draft deferments
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http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-cheney16sep16,1,7338994.story?coll=la-news-elect2004 Cheney's Draft Deferments Not Outside the Norm
Other men, especially those in college, took that route, an author of a book on the draft says.
By Nick Anderson
Times Staff Writer
September 16, 2004
WASHINGTON — Democrats now accuse him of ducking a war that defined his generation. But when 18-year-old Dick Cheney became eligible for the draft in 1959, compulsory military service did not loom large in the future vice president's life — or for many other young men of his generation.
True, Elvis Presley had just been drafted into the Army, but the pace of inductions was slow. The Cold War was on, and few Americans gave any thought to troubles in Southeast Asia.
Over the next eight years, though, the draft would cast a growing shadow over Cheney and others like him as the United States plunged into a military conflict in Vietnam that forced many young men to answer their country's call.
Cheney received his first draft deferment in March 1963, records show, two years before President Lyndon B. Johnson launched a large military offensive in Vietnam.
Days before his 25th birthday, in January 1966, Cheney obtained his fifth and final deferment. It ensured that he would not have to serve in a war that eventually claimed more than 58,000 American lives.
On Jan. 30, 1967, as the war raged, Cheney turned 26, an age that removed him from the draft pool for good.<snip>
When Cheney faced Senate confirmation hearings in 1989 for his nomination to lead the Pentagon, he was quoted as saying he "would have obviously been happy to serve" had he been called. Another Cheney quote from that time: "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."