I'm a Draft Dodger?

hcock 45 here welcome to the hickcock 45 talks Channel yes different Channel but it's still me glad you're here yeah I'm a draft Dodger although this would be fun to talk about I might have talked about in a Sunday uh shoot around uh uh it I've talked about somewhere I don't know shooting your bre done a lot of talking but it's a new age with the Hickock 45 talks I uh but I'm just talking about one thing I may bring back back anything I've ever talked about really and maybe I have different thoughts on it maybe I'm more brilliant now on that particular topic yeah anyway John and I get a kick out of it if we see and about once of course now you guys will have fun with me and you'll leave a lot of them but uh but about once I don't know maybe a year uh or every six months I don't know I'll see a comment about my being a draft Dodger and uh and I what you know you know where's this come from and uh there one of the things that I never have do there's nothing hardly anything lower than a opposer somebody who pretends to have military experience that doesn't you know or they're exaggerating their military experience whatever it might be you know I I agree with these uh I don't know can't think of the names there's a couple of people that they've devoted their Liv they veterans theyve devoted I think Navy Seals maybe they've devoted their lives to outing these people you know their videos I haven't seen them in a long time but they're probably still doing that outing people who pretend to be Navy SEAL or whatever it is some operator you know but anyway so I I mean oh man that is that is that is worse than pathetic isn't it uh I mean really get a life don't create some fictional life for yourself I me if you're going to a movie that's one thing but acting like you're some former operator or you're Navy SEAL and you not but anyway I digress I and I don't know I I've yaked a lot of course about my uh early years and in various venues and everybody knows my age I was uh in uh you know the Vietnam era I was I was of age of course and I was uh in college you know I I in in in 19 well 68 when I graduated high school I was uh while there were people you know being shipped off to Vietnam of course uh drafted or volunteering mostly drafted and and coming back in body bags and those sorts of things you we didn't have the 247 new cycle I was busy and I was practicing basketball every night you know was on the involved in that working hopefully towards a basketball scholarship you know and everything I didn't even see the news probably two minutes a week so the so different from now I couldn't even have told you where Vietnam was and uh a lot of people couldn't and definitely why we were over there and all that sort of thing uh but I knew I think that I I don't know I didn't go to college to avoid going to Vietnam I was trying to get a basketball scholarship I wanted to continue playing basketball and and you know get a college degree I wasn't as serious about it until I got into college in terms of the academics once I got there and and found a major I enjoyed I got way more serious about that and everything I mean it all worked out like great but but was that was all right in the middle of Vietnam uh going on of course and but I don't know where people get the draft Dodger uh business I I guess it's in a hyperbole because I didn't go and the only reason I I find some humor in that and someone saying that is they I guess in most cases they must they just figure out that well I wasn't there but I'm the correct age to be there I mean I guess uh why wasn't I you know maybe partly because I shoot a lot and oh you I to shoot military guns and they well you know he can hit anything with that gun why wasn't he in Vietnam I I don't know what it grows out of uh or occasionally maybe it's a a vet that was over there and they uh they they want to hate on me for not having gone I I don't know exactly but it does it pops up about once every you a few months and uh and it's just it's just a strange strange comment the reason it's so strange and a lot of people don't really un uh wouldn't understand if you're younger uh the the reason it makes no sense uh to most people is in the late 60s and early 70s and in Vietnam going on it was so so unlike like 911 and the wars in Iraq and all those kinds of things it was it was it was so unlike that uh nobody nobody was interested in going to Vietnam uh we were not attacked there was nothing going on that made you think oh my gosh I'm going to Vietnam I'm going to I'm going to get me some commies you know they're about to take us over or they they blew up Omaha or what you know there was there was just none of that sentiment and it was more of of a case where and maybe we were all just a little bit more clueless you know like I say there was no 24-hour news cycle you know and you rarely even saw the 30 minute news if you were a a school kid you know and uh and it was it would be like I don't know I don't know what a comparison would be uh uh I don't know we're all more aware what's going on in the world these days but like if we've got some action going on you know the United States does and in some other country and we see an article about it every now and then and we're not sure what it involves you know and uh you know it's just it just wouldn't uh affect us necessarily now the people that are there would could be people exchanging gunfire and everything else but Vietnam as bad as it was it just uh I I don't know I was busy you know uh doing things and it wasn't uh there was no drive to to save the country right there's no drive to save the country I wasn't one of these uh anti-war people or anything like that I didn't know enough about it and why the heck we're there what's going on over there and why why are we there where is it you know it was more of that kind of when I was in high school as I got into college I was still of course incredibly busy but I a little more aware because there'd be guys coming back and then they would get into call there was a guy on her basketball team that had been over there he'd been shot the rear end I remember you know and uh and then of course there were a couple of guys from high school that were killed uh classmates uh and so as that news came trickling back and everything it was like wow it became more real but it still wasn't some situation where there was this strong Drive well I'm going to go I need to go fight for my country and save my country over there you know so it was just a different times you know the things that have come about in the last uh whatever a couple of decades you know 9/11 and even before 9/11 where you have an all volunteer you know uh Army uh it's it's just a different a different attitude about the service which is great to see and and uh it still doesn't mean everywhere we go and take guns uh that we should be there right but yeah anyway I a draft Dodger I guess the strict definition of a draft Dodger is somebody who was drafted and they just were not going to go to war and so they went to Canada there were people who did that or whatever they did to avoid going right so I never really did any of that so I'm in the pure sense I'm not a draft Dodger I would have gone in fact with when was it uh about my second year in school yeah it had to be before 73 70 71 or 72 I was uh I know that previous winter I was trying you playing basketball and taking a full load classes and having to write research papers I was an English major everything and and I thought man I got to avoid that next fall if I can or in the winter and I taken so many credits I was going to take a a little bit lighter load I think 12 hours instead of 15 or something during basketball season especially traveling and but I but I didn't want to get jerked out of school and sent to Vietnam you know at that point I realized that could happen and I was in the middle of my basketball career my English major and all that kind of stuff and again you know Vietnam was not a big magnet uh and so I volunteered for my physical you I thought in fact I I was I was feeling not guilty but I I felt I remember at the time like War we all grew up seeing the movies and have uh I don't know fantasies you know and all that sort of thing in our heads but I kind of I remember just a piece of me regretted not being over there or not going not having that experience and I remember I volunteered to go get my physical so that I know what my classification was uh I was student classified as a student already and I knew everybody was telling me the fact I was 68 plus I'm like a quarter inch over 68 or something that uh that I'd be classified whatever it was I forget now another classification would probably keep me out anyway and I thought well let me I me volunteer for my fiscal and uh in that way I'll know maybe uh whether I could take a chance and just take a lighter load that that winter and I did I remember going back home got on a bus with you know about 30 other guys up at the bus stop in Florence Kentucky and went down I guess it was in Covington and Kentucky and went through all the physical with them and everything and and uh mean sure enough when they got to the part where they measured me they the guy got remember got really frustrated because it it pulled the I think it just went to like 68 or something or almost 68 and the measurement was on a scale and it it came out and he got frustration they go there and sit whatever so I actually did I qualified for that that other classification that wasn't two 2s was being a student I think I forgot what the other one was and I had a high draft lottery number pretty high 251 or something like that uh but I wanted to make sure before I just took 12 hours and that winter and and so I got that classification and and every anyway I remember all that but I I I never had this uh that kind of beside the point but I remember when I was getting my physical it it brought it closer to home of course cuz going down there I don't know if anybody knew I had volunteer for my physical and they had all been drafted I guess but I uh I didn't have this this deathly fear of being with them or even going over there you know ignorance is bliss I guess uh I just like everybody else feel like well I'll survive it if I go and it's got to be an incredible experience and I don't know I was young dumb ignorant I guess I don't know but I uh that that that was just kind of the way it was there was not a uh and I I I guess that's what a lot of people that are under what 40 or 50 may not fully grasp about those times and I'm not talking for 15 minutes to justify wi Engle fight Vietnam is just an interesting topic I think uh uh to maybe acquaint people a little bit more or familiarize people with the differences it was just nothing like early 2000s and uh all volunteer army and you know Iraq any of that you know it just it just was nothing like that it was basically you know it was hard to find somebody that thought yeah we ought to be over there it just really was maybe some older guy that' been fighting commies his whole life you know or something uh cuz I I probably would have I mean if it had been something like that uh even if it didn't make a lot of sense maybe for us to be there I I might have been you know persuaded pretty easily because I I wasn't averse to it enough probably uh if I hadn't been involved in so much you in school and basketball and I had hopes of playing in the NBA and all that so I I really just didn't really think much about Vietnam again it wasn't like they had had bombed at Los Angeles or flown planes into Towers or anything so anyway uh a draft Dodger is when you get drafted and you leave the country or something to avoid you know doing it or you burn your draft card or papers or whatever I didn't ever do that I was just busy sorry guess I'm not patriotic you know so uh I I think sometimes when I I see that comment and again it's very infrequent but but it's such a dramatic thing it's like you know well it's not like that I start it's like calling somebody a child molester some what where'd you get that I mean it's it's such a weird thing to to pull out of the air a draft Dodger oh really draft Dodger so uh let me go to Walmart or some mall and anybody who looks like they're about my age I'll ask them if they were in Vietnam if they went to Vietnam and if they did not you draff Dodger you know so anyway that's enough about that it's probably of no interest to you but I don't know I just had a note about it thought I'd talk about it life is good