Draft Evasion - Avoidance, Evasion, Resistance and Desertion Compared

Avoidance, Evasion, Resistance and Desertion Compared

It is possible to draw a contrast between draft evasion and draft avoidance. Just as tax avoidance is defined as reducing or eliminating one's tax liability through legal means, draft avoidance is the elimination or mitigation of a potential conscript's military service obligation through some lawful procedure. The Vietnam era version of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1968) simply defined draft dodger as "one who avoids military service" regardless how it was done. Some means of draft avoidance:

• Becoming a conscientious objector, whether one's anti-war sentiment is religious or otherwise. Peace churches, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mennonites, Amish, Brethren, Christian anarchists, Rastafari and Quakers, oppose any kind of military service for their members, even in non-combatant fields, but are not opposed to alternative non-uniformed civilian service. Note that many people who support conscription will distinguish between "bona fide" conscientious objection and draft dodging, which they view as evasion of military service without a valid excuse. Conscientious objection would be considered evasion if the sentiment was not genuine.
• Seeking excusal from military service due to health reasons - this would be considered evasion if the purported health issue was feigned or overstated.
• Marrying and/or fathering children, if the military in question will grant deferments to spouses and/or parents.
• Claiming to be homosexual, when the military in question excludes homosexuals - this would be considered evasion if the claim was false, but if the potential conscript is in fact a homosexual, it would be the rules of the military body that prevent him from enlisting, even if he wished to do so.
• Seeking and receiving a student deferment as in the cases of Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney. This would be considered evasion if false or misleading academic credentials were used.
• Applying for a job in an "essential" civilian occupation and seeking deferment on those grounds - often this required a letter from the potential draftee's employer to be accepted. After receiving deferment as a student, 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani received further deferment after his occupation as a law clerk was deemed "essential" by the Selective Service.
• Non-pacifist churches have at times deferred missionaries as "divinity students". During the Vietnam War the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became embroiled in controversy for deferring large numbers of its young members. The LDS church eventually agreed to cap the number of missionary deferments it sought for members in any one state; however, this generally did not stop LDS missionaries who lived outside Utah (such as 2008 and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney) from receiving deferments with relative ease.
• Rock star Ted Nugent described a more elaborate way of evading "dodging" the draft which involved a lapse in personal hygiene.
• Simply declining to enlist, if the potential conscript appears likely to avoid the draft through sheer "luck of the draw." During the Vietnam War, not all eligible young men were drafted; many who had a high lottery number simply took no action, knowing that they were unlikely to ever be drafted. Declining to enlist is not evasion, however some hold the view that young persons (or young men) of combat age have an affirmative duty to enlist in the military during wartime, even if not drafted.
• Paying a stand-in to take one's place if drafted. In most countries this is no longer legally sanctioned, but it was a lawful and very common practice in the U.S. Civil War. Grover Cleveland, who later became the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Fourth President of the United States, paid a substitute during the U.S. Civil War, an act for which he was criticized when he ran for President.
• In some countries it is often possible to evade military service by bribing corrupt draft officers, or by finding a doctor who will certify one as medically unfit.
• Moving out of the country (which, depending on the laws in question, may or may not exempt a citizen from the draft)

The term draft resister specifically refers to someone who explicitly refuses military service - simply attempting to flee the draft is draft evasion.