The Draft

The institution of the draft for the Vietnam War affected the general public directly. To meet the quotas, draft boards did away with student deferments, and college boys began to be drafted. With the growing involvement of American boys in the fighting in Vietnam, and the resulting increase in the number of American casualties, unrest, particularly among college students and, in some cases, faculty, became a problem for the government. The “protest movement” included among other things burned draft cards, anti-ROTC activities, sit-ins, strikes, rallies, teach-ins, occupation of college buildings, interference with military recruiters on campus, and protests of Dow Chemical (which made napalm). War protests became a national phenomenon, occurring on college campuses of every stripe, and broadcast to the nation every night on TV news. (Tuchman, March of Folly, pp. 339-340; Carlisle and Golson, “America in Revolt During the 1960s and 1970s”, pp. 122-126.)

An estimated 170,000 Americans received “conscientious objector” (CO) deferments from the draft during the Vietnam War, but as many as 300,000 were denied such status by the draft boards. (Hillstrom, p. 1.) By 1968, an estimated 10,000 draft eligible males went to Canada to avoid the draft. (Tuchman, Id. at pp. 223-224.) The most famous person to refuse the draft was the world heavyweight-boxing champion Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, who declared himself a “conscientious objector.” He was given a prison sentence (later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court), a three-year ban from boxing and he lost his boxing title. (Id.)

Following are several songs from the Vietnam War era that have the draft as their theme:

“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” written and performed by Arlo Guthrie (1967) (https://youtu.be/m57gzA2JCcM), is one of the most well-known anti-draft songs from the Vietnam War. It is a tongue-in-cheek comment about the draft process and the fact that any American citizen who was convicted of a crime, no matter how minor, could avoid being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. The song also comments on other “1960s issues,” such as police practices.

This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the restaurant.
But Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song, Alice’s Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
An’ you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on – two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog.
And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be.
An’ havin’ all that room, seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it’d be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.

Well, we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, “Closed on Thanksgiving.”
And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn’t find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage.
And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down.

That’s what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie.
He said, “Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of ab’ a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it.”
And I said, “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope under that garbage.”

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said, that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the police officer’s station.
So we got in the red VW microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the police officer’s station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he coulda given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn’t very likely, and we didn’t expect it, and the other thing was he coulda bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer’s station there was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said “Obie, I don’t think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.” He said, “Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.”

And that’s what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hangin’ around the police officer’s station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that’s not to mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, “Kid, I’m going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt.” And I said, “Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don’t have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?” And he said, “Kid, we don’t want any hangings.” I said, “Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for litterin’?” Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn’t hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn’t bend the bars roll out the – roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice… Remember Alice? It’s a song about Alice… Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, “All rise.” We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, ’cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down in New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. ‘Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”

And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, kill, kill, kill.” And I started jumpin’ up and down yelling, “Kill! Kill!” and he started jumpin’ up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “Kill! Kill!” And the Sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”

Didn’t feel too good about it.

An’ I proceeded on down the hall gettin’ more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they as doin’ to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, “What do you want?” He said, “Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacre, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome… – and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, did you ever go to court?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W, now kid!”

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committin’ your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?” I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.” He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?” And I said, “Litterin’.” And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance.” And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin’ about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargent came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said.

“Kids, this-piece-of-paper’s-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-officer’s-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say”, and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

(“Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?”)

I went over to the Sargent, said, “Sargent, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I’m sittin’ here on the bench, I mean I’m sittin’ here on the Group W bench, ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug.” He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington.”

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say “Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.” And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin’ a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin’ a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.

And that’s what it is, the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come’s around on the guitar.

With feeling. So we’ll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I’ve been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I’m not proud… or tired.

So we’ll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling.

We’re just waitin’ for it to come around is what we’re doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant (Excepting Alice)
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
(I said) Walk right in it’s around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant

Da-da da-da da-da da-dum

At Alice’s Restaurant.

In “Draft Dodger Rag,” Phil Ochs, again tongue-in-cheek, lists just about every excuse or condition that could get a potential draftee classified “4-F” and, thus, excused from the draft. Written and performed by Phi Ochs (1965). (https://youtu.be/tFFOUkipI4U)

Oh, I’m just a typical American boy from a typical American town
I believe in God and Senator Dodd and a-keepin’ old Castro down
And when it came my time to serve I knew “better dead than red”
But when I got to my old draft board, buddy, this is what I said:

Sarge, I’m only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma’s getting worse
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain’t no fool, I’m a-goin’ to school
And I’m working in a DEE-fense plant

I’ve got a dislocated disc and a wracked up back
I’m allergic to flowers and bugs
And when the bombshell hits, I get epileptic fits
And I’m addicted to a thousand drugs
I got the weakness woes, I can’t touch my toes
I can hardly reach my knees
And if the enemy came close to me
I’d probably start to sneeze

I’m only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma’s getting worse
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain’t no fool, I’m a-goin’ to school
And I’m working in a DEE-fense plant

Ooh, I hate Chou En Lai, and I hope he dies,
Onething you gotta see
That someone’s gotta go over there
And that someone isn’t me
So I wish you well, Sarge, give ’em Hell!
Kill me a thousand or so
And if you ever get a war without blood and gore
I’ll be the first to go

Yes, I’m only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma’s getting worse
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain’t no fool, I’m a-goin’ to school
And I’m working in a DEE-fense plant

“The Willing Conscript,” written and performed by Tom Paxton (1965) (https://youtu.be/VllDedsuRnc), focuses on the training to kill that every draftee is put through.

Oh Sergeant I’m a draftee and I’ve just arrived in camp.
I’ve come to wear the uniform and join the martial tramp.
And I want to do my duty, but one thing I do implore
You must give me lessons, sergeant, for I’ve never killed before.

To do my job obediently is my only desire.
To learn my weapon thoroughly and how to aim and fire.
To learn to kill the enemy and then to slaughter more,
I’ll need instruction, sergeant, for I’ve never killed before.

Now there are several lessons that I haven’t mastered yet.
I haven’t got the hang of how to use the bayonet.
If he doesn’t die at once am I to stick him with it more?
Oh, I hope you will be patient, for I’ve never killed before.

Oh, there are rumors in the camp about our enemy.
They say that when you see him he looks just like you and me.
But you deny it, Sergeant, and you are a man of war,
So you must give me lessons, for I’ve never killed before.

The hand grenade is something that I just don’t understand.
You’ve got to throw it quickly or you’re apt to lose your hand.
Does it blow a man to pieces with its wicked, muffled roar?
Oh, I’ve got so much to learn because I’ve never killed before.

Oh, I want to thank you, Sergeant, for the help you’ve been to me.
For you’ve taught me how to slaughter and to hate the enemy.
And I know that I’ll be ready when they march me off to war,
And I know that it won’t matter that I’ve never killed before.
And I know that it won’t matter that I’ve never killed before.

Another Phil Ochs song, “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” (1965) (https://youtu.be/gv1KEF8Uw2k) contrasts the willingness of young men of other generations to join the military and fight for their country with the unwillingness of young men to fight in Vietnam.

Oh, I marched to the battle of New Orleans,
At the end of the early British wars.
The young land started growing,
The young blood started flowing.
But I ain’t a-marching anymore!

Oh I killed my share of Injuns in a thousand different fights,
I was there at the Little Big Horn.
I heard many men a-lying,
I saw many more a-dying.
But I ain’t a-marching anymore!

It’s always the old to lead us to the wars,
Always the young to fall.
Now look at what we’ve won with a saber and a gun.
Tell me is it worth it all?

For I stole California from the Mexican land,
Fought in the bloody Civil War.
Yes, I even killed my brothers,
And so many others.
But I ain’t a-marching anymore!

For I marched to the battle of the German trench,
In a war that was bound to end all wars.
Oh I must have killed a million men,
And now they want me back again.
But I ain’t a-marching anymore!

It’s always the old to lead us to the wars,
Always the young to fall.
Now look at what we’ve won with a saber and a gun.
Tell me is it worth it all?

For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky,
Set off the mighty mushroom roar.
But I saw the cities burnin’,
And I knew that I was learnin’,
That I ain’t a-marching anymore!

Now the labor leader’s screamin’ when they closed the missile plant,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore.
Call it peace or call it treason,
Call it love or call it reason.
But I ain’t a-marching anymore!
I ain’t a-marching anymore