Today the Dayton campaign released a 1970 commencement program from Charles Sumner Junior High listing Mark Dayton among the teachers and advisers of the graduating class. As much as I appreciated that the school read from Scripture, recited the Pledge, and sang the National Anthem—it still doesn’t confirm the dates of his employment (month/year), who his employer was (apparently Teacher’s Inc.), or his status (paid/stipend/volunteer) and position within the Charles Sumner Junior H.S. (Dayton said he was a Student Teacher).

Why is it important to get details on this time of Mark Dayton’s life? It was forty years ago!  Who cares!  It's a mere blip on the screen of life. Well, maybe for some people. But not for Senator Dayton’s generation, 1969-1971 was not a carefree time. And it’s not unusual for the men of that era who are running for political office to be hounded for details about that particular “blip” of time.

John Kerry, George W. Bush, you can probably name many more.  In 1992, candidate Bill Clinton was pounded with the same questions. The media wanted every detail.  Here’s an excerpt:

Retired Col. Eugene Holmes, then the commander of the Army ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, was quoted in Thursday's Wall Street Journal as saying that Clinton, then a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University in England, "was able to manipulate things" so that he was not conscripted in the fall of 1969. He told the paper that Clinton had misled him into thinking he would be returning to Arkansas within a couple of months, rather than spending the entire academic year in England.

Clinton, disagreeing, says he does not know why Holmes, now 75, would make such a statement. He says the ROTC commander had encouraged him to go back for his second year at Oxford, since he could not attend ROTC training camp until the following summer.

Both men agree that during the summer of 1969, Clinton told Holmes he intended to enroll at the Arkansas law school and wanted to join the ROTC program there. Instead, Clinton went to Yale Law School and never joined ROTC.

As a result of his oral commitment to join the ROTC, Clinton got a draft deferment for September and October 1969, the two months he had been told that he was likely to be called up.

In September or October 1969, he says he changed his mind and decided not to join the ROTC unit, and was classified as draft-eligible on Oct. 30, 1969.

At the time Clinton backed out of his commitment to join the ROTC, which would have required him to go on active duty after finishing law school, the Selective Service system was in turmoil, as President Nixon struggled to ease anti-war sentiment on college campuses.

On Sept. 19, 1969, following meetings with top House and Senate leaders, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced that Nixon intended to sign an executive order exempting those ages 20 through 26, which included Clinton, from the proposed draft lottery.

Another change affecting Clinton, announced Oct. 1, allowed graduate students already in school to finish their academic year, even if they were called for induction.

Clinton says he decided to give up his ROTC deferment that month because he "felt badly" about having a deferment that would last four years, since several former classmates had already lost their lives in the war.

By the time the lottery took place, on Dec. 1, 1969, the rules had changed again and Clinton was in danger of being drafted. But he drew number 311; no one with a number higher than 195 was ever called.

 

Will you look at those details? Obviously every month mattered in 1969.

In 1992 (and in 1999), this was considered part of vetting a candidate. Granted, Mark Dayton is not running for President. But he is running for Governor—an executive position seen as the proving ground for future presidents. He is applying to be the Commander in Chief of our National Guard when they are on State Active Duty.  And since we know that Senator Dayton’s anti-war sentiment is the only consistent thing in his record (well that, and his aversion to private sector employment), we just want to make sure that he isn’t going to do something embarrassing like another “former boss” of his.

So, before we move on to the Boston Years, here are some additional “asinine” questions that I don’t know the answers to…bear with me for a moment…

From a 2000 Strib story:

“Dayton has acknowledged previously that he opposed the Vietnam War and that when he was a college student, he sent a letter to President Richard Nixon vowing not to serve. He received a deferment when he taught school in New York City right after college.”

It’s likely that when he wrote this letter, he had a student deferment so the point was moot. But when, exactly, did he receive a deferment referenced in connection with NYC teaching position?

• What was his Selective Service Classification after his graduation and before his employment with Teacher’s Inc?
• What was his Selective Service Classification after his employment with Teacher’s Inc?
• What was his Selective Service Classification after he ended his tenure with Teacher’s Inc?

It was a good thing that he got that deferment.   Because on November 26, 1969 President Nixon signed an amendment to the Military Selective Service Act of 1967 that established conscription based on random selection (lottery). And December 1, 1969 marked the date of the first draft lottery held since 1942. “This drawing determined the order of induction for men born between January 1, 1944 and December 31, 1950.”   Mr Dayton was born Janurary 26, 1947.

Even though military service doesn’t seem to affect our Gubernatorial elections anymore, I’m just trying to find out more about Mark Dayton’s “lost years” in general. 

I was born 11 months before Richard Nixon left office, my dad was never of the draft age, and I don’t pretend to understand what those tumultuous years of the late 60’s/early 70’s were like.  Maybe that’s why I’m so curious about the timeline of events that lead to some men being drafted in the war while others were not….I can’t imagine the mixed feelings of guilt, resentment, frustration, anger, patriotism, duty, and honor that must have stirred in American men of that era. 

I’m an activist of an entirely different generation whose motives are rooted in Reagan-era optimism and the peaceful strong country of my younger years.  What I do isn't "profitable" as some have charged.  I make no money from this writing and although I joke about wanting to get paid...if I did get paid I wouldn't be an activist.  You'd think that the those liberals of the Vietnam era would get that... perhaps they're just angry that my sliver of a generation, (so much tinier than their generation,) rejects much of what they think.  And the beat goes on.....

I know the Minnesota media establishment has zero interest in any of this information and that’s too bad.  Because singing along to the thirty-year ballad of Mark Dayton while he runs for the highest office in our state, represents a dereliction of duty of an entirely different kind.