Ron Stone

Congress re-instituted the draft—a forced conscription into the armed forces—in 1948, and it was continued until 1971. Of the 26,800,000 men of draft age during the Vietnam War, almost 16 million never served in the military because of deferments, disqualifications, or exemptions. About 570,000 of those were draft dodgers, those who purposely evaded the draft in one way or another. Many of these young men fled to Canada.

Ron Stone is an example of a draft dodger who went to Canada to avoid going to Vietnam. Before he was drafted, Stone worked fulltime as an aide to the U.S. Senate Majority Leader while he was attending college. When Stone received his draft notice in 1969, he knew he would not fight in a war which he felt was wrong. Stone refused to report and left for Canada instead. He lived in Canada...