“You Don’t Want to Fight? No Problem!”: How a Buddhist Draftee Learned There Are Worse Things Than Combat

Drafting Dissent: When a Pacifist Soldier Got Exactly What He Asked For
War rarely makes room for nuance, but sometimes, the gray areas are where the most memorable stories are born. Picture this: It’s 1969. You’re a young draftee, whisked across the world to fight in Vietnam—a war as controversial as it was chaotic. But you have a secret weapon: your conscience. You tell your commanding officer that, as a Buddhist, you can’t engage in combat. Surely, they’ll let you sit this one out, right? Well… not quite.
Enter one officer with a flair for “malicious compliance”—that delicious phenomenon where following the rules to the letter can be more punishing than breaking them.