July 23, 1969: Draft dodgers say city treats them well
There isn’t an ideal on the face of the earth worth killing for, Wes Sullivan, an American draft dodger living in Edmonton, told the Journal’s Alex Macdonald.
“There are some ideals I’d die for, but to take someone else’s life — that’s something else,” the 22-year-old said.
Sullivan was one of an estimated 20,000-30,000 draft-eligible American men and military deserters who, starting in 1965, sought refuge in Canada during the Vietnam War. More than 500 were believed to be living in Edmonton.
Sullivan and roommate Bruce Bailey, 23, both objected strongly to the Vietnam War, but their reasons for dodging the draft were broader than that. The war was just a catalyst to their dissatisfaction with the “grind” and what they believed was the growth of militarism in American life.
Bailey believed “the draft is unconstitutional as it violates the 13th Amendment which prohibits involuntary servitude in America.”
“Besides,” added Sullivan, “national defence is a sham — I haven’t seen any North Vietnamese running around California lately.”
George Curiel, 22, said he would rather be called a war resister. “It’s a more positive term and more accurately describes how I think.”
Before coming to Canada from California he tried to register as a conscientious objector. “To be a conscientious objector you have to believe in a supreme being,” he said. “I tried to tell them that I objected on moral grounds and that I believed in man as the centre of the universe.
“But the cigar-smoking, ex-marine, chamber of commerce types on the (draft) board seem to think that if you don’t believe in God you can’t have any morals.
“The question of joining up doesn’t even enter into the picture. It’s either jail or Canada.”
Eric Miller, 21, came to Canada to escape the draft because his history class gave him a “new expanded political consciousness (which) awakened me to American life in a bigger way.”
He didn’t feel any patriotism to Canada, but then he never felt any toward the United States either.
“They’re both about the same,” Miller said. “I don’t feel any different living here.”
Curiel, however, felt that “Canada is a totally different environment.
“In the States I was afraid to tell anyone I wanted to resist the draft, but here people actually say they would too if they were Americans.”
Edmontonians treated them well and were sympathetic, most of the draft dodgers said.
“This is home,” Sullivan and Bailey added.
Some draft dodgers returned to the U.S. after a pardon was declared in 1977 but roughly half of them stayed in Canada.