Yet.
But no doubt someone will, once this statue is unveiled:
The statue and what it honoured — young Americans dodging the Vietnam War draft by coming to Canada — created an international kerfuffle two years ago and has since been shuffled between municipalities who found it too controversial.
But it now has a home.
The art will be housed in a private gallery in Nelson, B.C., and should be on view when a long-planned reunion of Vietnam War draft resisters — also known as draft dodgers — is held this summer.
Some organizers involved in the four-day Our Way Home Peace Event and Reunion in July were in Vancouver on Tuesday to show the media a clay likeness of the 2.7-metre bronze statue.
The statue depicts a Canadian welcoming with open arms two Americans.
“This piece is also coming forward at a time when there is terrific militarism in the world and it's showing Americans who came out of conscience, who took another path,” reunion organizer Isaac Romano said.
What harsh reprisals did the draft dodgers face in the unlikely event that their draft number got called up and they were ordered deployed to Vietnam?
A firing squad? Torture? Imprisonment of their families?
No, just a short jail sentence and after the war, a generous amnesty!
And for running away from such relatively lenient treatment, they are called men of conscience!
Cowardice doth make consciences for us all.
Source: Globe and Mail
PS: Will there ever be raised, if such does not already exist, a statue to U.S. Civil War draft dodgers? Or to American volunteers who came north to fight in World War I three years before the U.S. entered it? Didn't think so.
1 comment:
I met ONE draft dodger that I know of in the early 70's.
A girl friend of mine was smitten with him. He gave her the clap and who knows what else!
A complete POS.
BTW there were also Canadians who went south to join the US Military......
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