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Hell No, We Won't Go! Resisting the Draft During the Vietnam War
Explains the draft system of the Vietnam War era and utilizes personal accounts to look at the experiences and alternative actions of the young men who chose draft evasion and resistance
274 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1991
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May 5, 2022
Hell No, We Won’t Go! Resisting the Draft During the Vietnam War,
by Sherry Gershon Gottlieb
Reviewed by Dee Knight
“As long as there are thinking people, there is going to be resistance to war. The results of the resistance to the Vietnam war were that the entire nation finally coalesced in a united demand that we get out of Vietnam. This outcry for peace was largely brought about by the efforts of the young men who dared to dissent.” So spoke Representative Parren Mitchell of Maryland, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, speaking at congressional amnesty hearings in 1972.
Sherry Gerson Gottlieb’s book gives voice to several dozens of these thinking people and the ways they found to get out of the draft. Most of them didn’t really resist, but rather evaded the draft one way or another ‒ using student deferments; acting “crazy” or “sick” or “gay” at pre-induction physicals; changing addresses so often the draft board’s letters never caught up with them; and of course, going to Canada or living “underground,” or outright refusing and going to jail.
Gerson Gottlieb writes that over four million men escaped the draft through the lottery, “either with a high number or through a loophole.” Another quarter million never registered for the draft. She quotes William Smith, founder of the Los Angeles Selective Service Law Panel that “people stayed out of the draft primarily by medical deferments or conscientious objection,” but that “medical deferments outweighed conscientious objection by fifty to one.”
Smith says “the affluent draft resister had a far better chance of winning because of all the advantages he had: he could afford to transfer his physical exam because his parents could send him to [whatever draft board would accept his claim]… If we couldn’t get him out on medical grounds, chances are he had the advantage of a much better education,” making it easier to write a “cogent conscientious objector claim.” So “the people who went to Vietnam were primarily minority people, poor people, or working-class people, because they didn’t have the support mechanism to get out of the draft.”
The focus of Smith’s work in the sixties was anti-draft counseling, but “by 1974 my practice was virtually full-time military.” But at that time he did take a grant from the National Council of Churches to “bring back people from Canada before the amnesties were declared by Carter and Ford.” His job was to “negotiate with the U.S. Attorney on ongoing indictments.” He got a lot of them dismissed, helping thousands of exiled war resisters resolve their cases.
Elliott Moreland was a Vietnam veteran who “got into draft counseling when I came back from Nam – mostly to keep people from having to experience what I experienced in Vietnam.” He worked full-time at a local church-based draft counseling center, but “I worked out of my apartment also.” At the center everything was strictly legal: “you couldn’t tell people about Canada; you couldn’t tell people outright to evade the draft…” At home “the stuff I did… was a little different – there were no rules. You could get people in and out of Canada… There was a group in Canada that would actually take people once you got them across the border and find them places to live, find them jobs…” He had people to help with work permits, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, both for Canada and for people who didn’t want to go to Canada but “just wanted to disappear,… kind of like what the FBI does for guys who turn State’s witnesses: new town, new identity. A lot of people chose to do that.”
Some famous people show up in Gerson Gottlieb’s book, like Dr. Benjamin Spock (the baby doctor) and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin of Princeton, who “chose public defiance, resulting in indictments for their activities.” By far the most famous, and most heroic, was Muhammad Ali (previously known as Cassius Clay). He stood up and said “Who is this white man… to tell me to go to Asia, Africa, or anywhere else in the world, to fight people who never threw a rock at me or America? Who is this descendant of slave masters to order a descendant of slaves to fight other people in their own country?” As he left the induction center, “A black boy shouts out, ‘You don’t go, so I won’t go!’”
The champ put a lot on the line. He was stripped of his world heavyweight title, but “four years later, the Supreme Court unanimously reverses that decision, 8-0, but now this is the biggest victory of my life. I’ve won something that’s worth whatever price I have to pay.”
Whether famous or not, the people in “Hell No, We Won’t Go” did a real service. As Bob Kizer, director of "Hell Comes to Frogtown," told Gerson Gottlieb, “we did not really end the war – all we did was create an atmosphere that made the American public and the political structure uncomfortable with the war, and therefore built a feeling in the country, and the politicians, of ‘Let’s just end this…’ In many ways, the actual fighting of the war ended the war.” Gerson Gottlieb agrees. At the end of the book she says “a democracy offers its citizens a choice. If its citizens choose peace, so bit it.”
Now, with a “poverty draft” and “drone wars,” the military-industrial complex has figured out ways to wage wars without as many actual soldiers as they had to use and abuse in Vietnam. But so far it hasn’t stopped them. The Vietnam-era resistance was a chapter, however heroic and significant, in a battle against the war makers that is not yet over.
Dee Knight is the author of My Whirlwind Lives: Navigating Decades of Storms, and former editor of AMEX-Canada, a leading participant in the National Council for Universal Unconditional Amnesty from 1973 to 1977.
by Sherry Gershon Gottlieb
Reviewed by Dee Knight
“As long as there are thinking people, there is going to be resistance to war. The results of the resistance to the Vietnam war were that the entire nation finally coalesced in a united demand that we get out of Vietnam. This outcry for peace was largely brought about by the efforts of the young men who dared to dissent.” So spoke Representative Parren Mitchell of Maryland, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, speaking at congressional amnesty hearings in 1972.
Sherry Gerson Gottlieb’s book gives voice to several dozens of these thinking people and the ways they found to get out of the draft. Most of them didn’t really resist, but rather evaded the draft one way or another ‒ using student deferments; acting “crazy” or “sick” or “gay” at pre-induction physicals; changing addresses so often the draft board’s letters never caught up with them; and of course, going to Canada or living “underground,” or outright refusing and going to jail.
Gerson Gottlieb writes that over four million men escaped the draft through the lottery, “either with a high number or through a loophole.” Another quarter million never registered for the draft. She quotes William Smith, founder of the Los Angeles Selective Service Law Panel that “people stayed out of the draft primarily by medical deferments or conscientious objection,” but that “medical deferments outweighed conscientious objection by fifty to one.”
Smith says “the affluent draft resister had a far better chance of winning because of all the advantages he had: he could afford to transfer his physical exam because his parents could send him to [whatever draft board would accept his claim]… If we couldn’t get him out on medical grounds, chances are he had the advantage of a much better education,” making it easier to write a “cogent conscientious objector claim.” So “the people who went to Vietnam were primarily minority people, poor people, or working-class people, because they didn’t have the support mechanism to get out of the draft.”
The focus of Smith’s work in the sixties was anti-draft counseling, but “by 1974 my practice was virtually full-time military.” But at that time he did take a grant from the National Council of Churches to “bring back people from Canada before the amnesties were declared by Carter and Ford.” His job was to “negotiate with the U.S. Attorney on ongoing indictments.” He got a lot of them dismissed, helping thousands of exiled war resisters resolve their cases.
Elliott Moreland was a Vietnam veteran who “got into draft counseling when I came back from Nam – mostly to keep people from having to experience what I experienced in Vietnam.” He worked full-time at a local church-based draft counseling center, but “I worked out of my apartment also.” At the center everything was strictly legal: “you couldn’t tell people about Canada; you couldn’t tell people outright to evade the draft…” At home “the stuff I did… was a little different – there were no rules. You could get people in and out of Canada… There was a group in Canada that would actually take people once you got them across the border and find them places to live, find them jobs…” He had people to help with work permits, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, both for Canada and for people who didn’t want to go to Canada but “just wanted to disappear,… kind of like what the FBI does for guys who turn State’s witnesses: new town, new identity. A lot of people chose to do that.”
Some famous people show up in Gerson Gottlieb’s book, like Dr. Benjamin Spock (the baby doctor) and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin of Princeton, who “chose public defiance, resulting in indictments for their activities.” By far the most famous, and most heroic, was Muhammad Ali (previously known as Cassius Clay). He stood up and said “Who is this white man… to tell me to go to Asia, Africa, or anywhere else in the world, to fight people who never threw a rock at me or America? Who is this descendant of slave masters to order a descendant of slaves to fight other people in their own country?” As he left the induction center, “A black boy shouts out, ‘You don’t go, so I won’t go!’”
The champ put a lot on the line. He was stripped of his world heavyweight title, but “four years later, the Supreme Court unanimously reverses that decision, 8-0, but now this is the biggest victory of my life. I’ve won something that’s worth whatever price I have to pay.”
Whether famous or not, the people in “Hell No, We Won’t Go” did a real service. As Bob Kizer, director of "Hell Comes to Frogtown," told Gerson Gottlieb, “we did not really end the war – all we did was create an atmosphere that made the American public and the political structure uncomfortable with the war, and therefore built a feeling in the country, and the politicians, of ‘Let’s just end this…’ In many ways, the actual fighting of the war ended the war.” Gerson Gottlieb agrees. At the end of the book she says “a democracy offers its citizens a choice. If its citizens choose peace, so bit it.”
Now, with a “poverty draft” and “drone wars,” the military-industrial complex has figured out ways to wage wars without as many actual soldiers as they had to use and abuse in Vietnam. But so far it hasn’t stopped them. The Vietnam-era resistance was a chapter, however heroic and significant, in a battle against the war makers that is not yet over.
Dee Knight is the author of My Whirlwind Lives: Navigating Decades of Storms, and former editor of AMEX-Canada, a leading participant in the National Council for Universal Unconditional Amnesty from 1973 to 1977.
December 14, 2016
I'm a big fan of this book. I first found it over a decade ago in college doing research for a paper. I was happy to find that they still had it when I was looking for a copy to reread it. ESU was apparently the only library in the state to have a copy!
The Peanut Butter story was the only one that had clearly stuck in my mind after all these years. You should find a copy just to read that one. But all the stories good, quick reads. None of the anecdotes were more than 3 pages so it's very simple to pick it up intermittently and still get through without losing track of where you are. Most of the stories are humorous, though a few are a bit disturbing, and they all together make you think. I'm glad I never had to figure out my involvement in Vietnam.
With any luck, someday I'll own a copy of this, just in case ESU ever gets rid of this copy.
The Peanut Butter story was the only one that had clearly stuck in my mind after all these years. You should find a copy just to read that one. But all the stories good, quick reads. None of the anecdotes were more than 3 pages so it's very simple to pick it up intermittently and still get through without losing track of where you are. Most of the stories are humorous, though a few are a bit disturbing, and they all together make you think. I'm glad I never had to figure out my involvement in Vietnam.
With any luck, someday I'll own a copy of this, just in case ESU ever gets rid of this copy.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews