Called to Serve: Stories of Men and Women Confronted by the Vietnam War Draft

Called to Serve: Stories of Men and Women Confronted by the Vietnam War Draft features 30 testimonies representing the entire range of responses to being drafted during the Vietnam War. There are men who served, men who resisted and went to jail, men who chose conscientious objection, men who left the country for Canada and men who found a variety of ways to beat the draft from having a high lottery number to feigning mental or physical illness. Each story is unique, but all share the stress, the turmoil and the uncertainty at a critical stage of life and during very turbulent times - the late 60's and early 70's. There is also a chapter entitled, THOSE WHO LOVED, SUPPORTED AND COUNSELED, which features the stories of 4 women. The author has chosen to include this wide range of responses to the draft and war in order to facilitate long overdue healing as each person presents his or her experience with rich detail and considerable back story so as to encourage empathy with each person's plight. This is from the Preface by Charlie Clements who both served in and later protested against the war:Over the decades, I have waited for someone to recognize and write about the profound fork in the road facing those of us affected by military conscription in the 1960s and '70s. Assuredly, there have been a lot of books that looked at the lives of men (and women) who followed the path of serving in Vietnam. Now, finally, there is a book exploring both that decision as well as the lives of some who chose the other fork in the road. Could the latter be said to be the "road less traveled?" I think not: it's only the road less written about.