President Carter pardons draft dodgers , Jan. 21, 1977
On this day in 1977, President Jimmy Carter, in his first full day in office, fulfilled a campaign promise by granting unconditional pardons to hundreds of thousands of men who had evaded the draft during the Vietnam War by fleeing the country or by failing to register with their Selective Service boards.
At the time, the blanket amnesty generated a good deal of criticism, from veterans’ groups and others who disapproved of the idea of letting perceived unpatriotic lawbreakers get off scot-free. On the other end of the political spectrum, the pardon came under fire from amnesty groups for not having addressed deserters, or soldiers who were dishonorably discharged or violent civilian anti-war demonstrators.
Gerald Ford, Carter’s predecessor in the White House, had offered conditional amnesty to some draft dodgers. Carter, however, seeking to heal the war’s physic wounds, set no conditions, although, as noted above, some individuals were excluded from the pardon.
In all, about 100,000 Americans went abroad in the late 1960s and early ‘70s to avoid being called up. Some 90 percent went to Canada where, after some initial controversy, they were accepted as legal immigrants.
Thousands went into hiding at home, sometimes changing their identities. In addition, about 1,000 military deserters found their way to Canada. While Canadian authorities at first indicated they would be prosecuted or deported, in practice they were left alone. Canadian border guards were told not to ask too many questions.
For its part, the federal government continued to prosecute draft evaders after the Vietnam War ended. A total of 209,517 men were accused of violating draft laws, while another approximately 360,000 were never formally charged.
Before Carter issued his pardon, those who had fled to Canada faced prison sentences if they chose to return to the United States. In the end, an estimated 50,000 draft dodgers chose to settle permanently in Canada. As Canadian citizens, some of them have entered the political scene.
Although President Richard Nixon ended the draft in 1973, desertion has remained an issue as Americans continued to fight wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. More than 20,000 soldiers have been dropped from the rolls as deserters since 2006, Army data show. In cases that were tried in military courts over the past 13 years, about half the soldiers pleaded guilty to deserting their posts.
The U.S. Army has prosecuted about 1,900 cases of desertion since 2001, including Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who left his Afghanistan post in 2009 and was captured and held by the Taliban for five years. Last November, a military judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, rejected a prosecutor’s recommendation that Bergdahl be sentenced to 14 years confinement. Nance ruled that he should be dishonorably discharged and reduced in rank to private. President Donald Trump criticized the decision as a disgrace to the military and said Bergdahl should be “shot.”
SOURCE: www.history.com