History Main / DraftDodging

* Lt Keith of ''Literature/TheCaineMutiny'' voluntarily signs up for Naval OCS and becomes a Navy officer to avoid being drafted and becoming an Army grunt.

* Inverted in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger movie''. Steve Rogers gets rejected by the draft board nearly eight times. They finally let him join the army if he agrees to be part of Dr. Abraham Erskine's experiment... and we all know how that turns out.

* Inverted in the ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger movie]]. Steve Rogers was rejected by the draft board nearly eight times. They finally let him join the army if he agreed to be part of an experiment... and we all know how that turned out.

* ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacreTheBeginning:'' Dean has been drafted to fight in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar but plans to flee to Mexico instead.

* In ''{{Tigerland}}'' two soldiers about to depart to Vietnam contemplate jumping from a roof to injure themselves and avoid deployment. At the end of the film [[spoiler:a soldier deliberately injures another soldier's eye so that he will be discharged.]]

* In the Creator/LaurelAndHardy movie ''Great Guns'', the eponymous duo were servants to a rich family. When a man from said family was drafted, the family (not the draftee himself) tried this.

* The 1969 comedy ''The Gay Deceivers'' has two guys doing this to keep out of Vietnam. [[spoiler:It turns out they needn't have bothered, because the guys from the draft board are themselves gay and trying to keep '''straight''' people out.]]

* According to (apocryphal) legend, Creator/LennyBruce wore a dress to his draft bureau in order to avoid service.[[note]]Lenny Bruce actually enlisted in the US Navy at age 16, serving in WWII. He wore a WAVES uniform [[NeverLiveItDown one time]] as part of a skit. His superior ordered a psych-evaluation so out of spite, he pretended to be gay.[[/note]] Klinger on ''Series/{{MASH}}'' is a direct reference to these myths, except that in Klinger's case his cross-dressing was an attempt to convince the Army that he was insane rather than gay.

* In ''Literature/{{Reamde}}'', Richard Forthrast's backstory involves him fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft. This earns him the nickname "Dodge," which he doesn't seem to mind. After starting a video game company, he even calls in in-game avatar "[[SdrawkcabName Egdod]]."

* Bluto tried this in a classic {{Popeye}} short. However, once he and Popeye are attacked by Japanese spies, he changes his mind and enlists.

* Sweden, being one of the last countries in the world to practice universal conscription even in peacetime, has a rich OralTradition of stories of this type, particularly since psychiatric disability is one of the easiest "outs" to fake. Some are purely humorous (My buddy rolled himself up in the rug and said he was a hot dog!), others have a moral ending (My cousin claimed he was narcoleptic, so they took his driver's license.) The abolition of conscription means that this tradition is slowly dying. It was dying beforehand, too -- the end of the Cold War didn't mean the end of formal universal conscription, but it ''did'' result in a massive drop of how many actually were drafted, with a corresponding increasing ease in not being drafted.

# Claim you're too sick. Maybe all you need for this option is a note by your doctor; but you may also go through some pain, which can go as far as self-mutilation.

# Declare yourself a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector "conscientious objector"]] and convince a military tribunal that you're [[ActualPacifist objecting for ideological reasons]] (easier for members of certain religions, such as Quakers). There is a very chequered history of countries (a) allowing you the right to do this (although it's in the UN's [[UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar Universal Declaration of Human Rights]]) and (b) actually abiding by it if they do. Some objectors agree to serve as TheMedic, as stretcher bearers, or in other non-combatant roles. Others are delegated for non-military work that can be every bit as dangerous as combat - fighting forest fires, disaster or marine rescue services, tending quarantined patients in contagious-disease wards - but doesn't force them to ''hurt'' anyone.

An alternative for Draft Dodging is ''getting smart''. That means volunteering in a unit with little to do with actual military, such as National Guard, Coast Guard or Border Guard, or pulling the strings and/or gaming the system by getting yourself in a non-fighting position, such as company clerk, vehicle mechanic or drill instructor. Of course, even this isn't foolproof, as in the US, the Coast Guard and National Guard can both be (and especially in recent years, often are) mobilized to the front lines, and even SoldiersAtTheRear might find themselves on the front due to the needs of the service or surprise enemy attacks.

This is a trope that may become a DeadHorseTrope in the next few decades, as more and more western states abolish conscription. There is still draft registration in the United States, but it is so politically unacceptable that the laws regarding registration are not enforced. [[note]]The "Selective Service" system requires all eligible males between the ages of 18-25 to register for the draft. Failure to do so is punishable, but few, if any, are ever punished. Resident aliens, on the other hand, ''must'' register or face deportation, and this ''is'' enforced. Additionally, draft registration is ''mandatory'' to receive federal student aid, or to apply for a government job. There's also the argument that the US military ''prefers'' an all-volunteer army, as the quality of troops tends to be much higher when the troops ''want'' to be there.[[/note]] Whether American conscription is ever revived is debatable. The US has proven it can fight protracted wars without conscription, but the full impact of this has yet to be seen and a future war with higher casualties may force the draft to be revived. This is also something of a required trope for the "chickenhawk" variant of MilesGloriosus: the WarHawk who claims the nation's military is their greatest pride, while quietly shoving a heavily doctored medical report under the table.

* Mentioned in ''ComicBook/{{Maus}}''. The grandfather of the artist had ''16'' of his teeth pulled so he wouldn't have to join the army; the artist's father (the protagonist) would willingly ruin his health with a salted herring-only diet and no sleep and coffee during the least three days before the test. (It was the grandfather who insisted that he'd do this. But the artist's father found doing it was so terrible, he preferred to be drafted the second time around.)

* In ''{{Tigerland}}'' two soldiers about to depart to Vietnam contemplate jumping from a roof to injure themselves and avoid deployment. At the end of the film [[spoiler:a soldier deliberately injures another soldiers' eye so that he will be discharged.]]

* There's the joke about the fox, the bunny and the bear who want to avoid conscription. The fox thinks he is going into military intelligence and [[ObfuscatingStupidity pretends to be stupid]]. The bunny thinks he is going to be a spy and cuts off his ears. The bear thinks he is going to become a fighter and pulls his teeth and claws... then is rejected because he is too fat (or has flat feet).

** Later into the book, one-year volunteer Marek[[note]]One-year volunteer - [[GratuitousGerman Einjährigfreiwilliger]] - is his rank in the [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Austrian military]], a designation for a "reserve officer candidate", he was actually drafted.[[/note]] is introduced, who describes his failed attempts to catch rheumatism - he slept in gutters in rain and bathed in icy river - which only hardened him to cold, so he felt perfectly fit after spending whole night sleeping on snow. He also tried to catch a venereal disease, visiting brothel daily, but he [[STDImmunity remained immune]]. Finally he met a disabled soldier who injected him with something which made him suffer a "real rheumatism" so he can hardly move.

* Creator/DaveBarry in ''Dave Barry Turns 50'', mentions a guy who wore the same underwear for several days, not even removing them to go to the bathroom(!), so that the doctors reject him solely to avoid them getting near him. He also says that to him, this guy was quite a bit more honorable than Henry Kissinger.

-->'''Buster:''' ...hole in my heart. I've never opened my eyes underwater. My genital area is shaped like a lobster tail, but without its shell. Uh, oh, I guess I have the panic attacks under control. Oh, and I'm legally blind at night.

* A ''Series/{{QI}}'' episode discussed how during WWI, Germans and British propaganda teams bombed each other with leaflets carrying information on how to fake symptoms of tuberculosis so that you can be sent back. Methods including smoking 30 cigarettes per day to get the heart palpatations, raspy voice and cough; putting toothpaste into your eyes to make them watery and bloodshot, and mixing some smegma into your sputum samples to fool the people doing the biopsy.

* In the second ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans'', one of the side missions has you get a draft dodging hippy to the base so he could serve.

* Averted and played with by Hank Hill in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill''. Hank's dad, [[JerkAss Cotton,]] lied about his age and enlisted at age 15 so he could fight in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and makes fun of him by calling him a draft dodger for not serving in the Army. The real reason Hank did not serve in the Army was because when he tried to enlist at age 18, he was disqualified due to having a narrow urethra, and the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar had been over for some time.

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* According to (apocryphal) legend, Creator/LennyBruce wore a dress to his draft bureau in order to avoid service.[[note]]Lenny Bruce actually enlisted in the US Navy at age 16, serving in WWII. He wore a WAVES uniform [[NeverLiveItDown one time]] as part of a skit. His superior ordered a psych-evaluation, so out of spite he pretended to be gay.[[/note]] Klinger on ''Series/{{MASH}}'' is a direct reference to these myths, except that in Klinger's case his cross-dressing was an attempt to convince the Army that he was insane rather than gay.

* A Swedish urban legend says that draft dodgers who claimed to be homosexual, were sent to a gay-only boot camp on the isle of Gotland. The idea of an island full of armed gays, who would presume that all rookies were gay as well, would deter teens from feigning homosexuality. Apparently, the gay unit was a fiction made up by the military. During periods of Swedish history, homosexuality has been considered a disease or a crime, but it was never considered a valid reason to avoid the draft.
* Another urban legends claims that some men would avoid being drafted by sitting on a bottle. This would make them look an [[strike:active]] [[{{Pun}} passive]] gay during the medical test.

* ''ComicBook/{{Sturmtruppen}}'' had an arc based on this and the famous ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo'' example (see below), with a soldier finding out that the regulations allow to demand discharge for madness... Only for the sergeant to dub all his attempts at being proving himself crazy as proof he's an ''idiot''. In the end he succeeds when he volunteers to dispose of [[StuffBlowingUp avariated nitroglycerin]] (much more likely to explode on a whim than normal nitroglycerin, hence the sergeant not actually expecting volunteers and ''asking him if he was insane'' when he did)... Only for the doctor to point out that, according to the [[ShoutOut Catch 22]] of the regulations, asking to be discharged on grounds of madness is proof you're ''not'' crazy, and thus he's stuck with the disposal. [[spoiler:He gets the discharge anyway when the fear literally drives him mad, the sergeant delivering it while he's been dragged to the asylum]].

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* There is the story of the Saxon who came to draft smiling and giggling asking when he is going to get his gun. When asked about anything he just said he didn't care and just wanted to be handed his gun already. The examiners became incredibly creeped out when he started whispering "Bang. Hehe." and he became angry about all the examinations and shouted "I just came here to finally get my damned gun. GIVE ME MY GUN ALREADY!" In the end they told him his gun would come in the mail and shooed him home. Security was tightened and laughs between friends were shared respectively.

* In Finland universal draft for men is still going strong and until relatively recently was very difficult to dodge. Back when it was extremely hard to get out there was more sympathy for dodgers than today, and from those days there comes this amusing little anecdote / urban legend: When a man came to the army, he kept pretending to ride an invisible scooter everywhere, making motor sounds with his mouth and holding his arms extended in front of him. No matter how many disciplinary measures were taken on him, and even after a couple of beatings from his fellow privates he just kept going relentlessly. Finally his superiors had enough of his antics and had a psychiatrist declare him unfit for military service. At the gates of the garrison he suddenly stopped, mimed taking a key from his imaginary scooter and handed it to one of the [=MPs=] saying: "I hereby relinquish the army vehicle to your care, sir", and walked away normally, whistling happily as he went.
** Another version of the story has the man break in laughter when someone ask him to give a ride with the bike, thus proving that he is not insane.

* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11536013/9/Hyperemesis-gravidarum Hyperemesis Gravidarum]]'' by Creator/AAPessimal, an Assassins' Guild graduate is seen industriously finding new and pressing reasons to extend her stay in Ankh-Morpork so as to avoid national service in [[UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica her native country]]. The expectation is that after being sponsorored through the toughest school on the Disc for seven years and having been taught lots of skills which would be useful to her Staadt, as one educated overseas at State expense she is expected to return Home and repay her country's investment in her. by signing up in a useful capacity. Heidi van Kruger has other ideas which do not include two years in the paramilitary SecretPolice. She notes to herself, seeing the example of a compatriot, that marriage and pregnancy would be a heroic last-ditch exemption. By the end of the story there is, in fact, a potential husband.

* In documentary ''Film/HeartsAndMinds'', one young man who has been hiding out from the draft decides, against his mother's advice, to turn himself in and make a public statement.

* Subverted on ''Series/BorderSecurityCanadasFrontLine''. A Korean man arrives in Canada to study. A CBSA agent suspects he's trying hide out to avoid military service. It's eventually cleared up he was planning to apply as a CombatMedic, which took several months to process, so he's cleared to enter Canada, albeit with the caution he could only stay for six months in a year without a visa.

* ''Film/GangsOfNewYork'' follows the build-up to the historical [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots New York City Draft Riots]] as the major B-Plot of the movie (and the riots themselves eventually interfere with the A-Plot, killing most of the cast as collateral damage). The reason why these riots occurred was because the New York rich paid to be left out of the draft on the Civil War and the poor (including shanghaied immigrants) were unable to do so.

* A ComicBook/DonaldDuck story presents Donald as having pulled it ''accidentally'', as his notification had been lost in the mail and he was under the impression he had been exempted due his duck physiology giving him flat feet and making him short and chubby-an argument shot down by the general on his case for the accidental dodging being a duck himself. When the army finds out and decides to draft him he tries to get exempted by crouching just enough to appear too short, only for the general seeing it coming and straightening him (Donald is ''just'' tall enough to qualify). Then, at the end of basic training, he asks for a license before deployment because his nephews are coming home from the Junior Woodchucks camp and he needs to find them a new home... At which point [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the general realizes he's forcing the sole caretaker of three orphans to serve in the army]] and exempts him.

* In the beginning of ''Literature/TheGreatGatsby'', the narrator Nick Carraway is talking about how he was born into money and mentions that his grandfather was wealthy enough to hire a substitute to serve in the Civil War.

* In Creator/BruceCoville's short story ''With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm'', there are people who avoid being drafted into the endless wars on the continent of Losfar because they're physically unfit and others who avoid it because they're too frightened, too smart or simply "too loving"; this last category is the most dangerous, because objecting to the war has been made illegal. The protagonist, Brion, fits the last category and fakes being crippled to avoid serving in a war he doesn't believe in, but ends up revealing his true status and is arrested and [[OffWithHisHead executed]] for it. He promptly comes BackFromTheDead to force his king to withdraw from the wars entirely (and later leads an ArmyOfTheDead to talk a massive army of enemy soldiers into deserting in order to put off their own deaths).
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/InAGoodCause": Altmayer is jailed on June 17, 2755 because he refused to accept {{Conscription}} against the human government of Santanni. He would rather fight against the alien Diaboli.

* Creator/AllanSherman's "Dodging the Draft" offers several tips for doing such. Aside from the inevitable homosexuality, sickness and disability claims, he also suggests saying that "you don't need the army 'cause you've seen Creator/BobHope", bragging that "you studied under [[UsefulNotes/MuhammadAli Cassius Clay]]" and that "[[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Benedict Arnold]] was on [your] father's side", and offering the officer a light for his cigarette by [[RefugeInAudacity burning your draft card]]. "If the draft board acts in the usual way", he says, "you'll be what I call... 1-A!" [[note]](1-A means "available for unrestricted military service" in the Selective Service classification system.)

* Gregg Allman took a more drastic measure. When he got his draft notice, [[Music/TheAllmanBrothersBand he and his brother, Duane]], had a "foot-shooting" party. They had a party and when Gregg was good and drunk, they called the EMT's and shot Gregg in the foot (Gregg was originally going to shoot himself, but was so nervous Duane had to do it). When he went to his draft physical, he claimed he accidentally shot himself while cleaning his gun. They bought it and he was rejected.
* Musician Bobby Keys (best known as the sax player for Music/TheRollingStones) was actually accused of being a draft dodger because he never showed up for his draft physicals, as he was on the road playing and never received the letters. He was advised by the head of his local draft board to try and enlist before the Army caught up with him. He did so, and was rejected due to a medical history of ulcers.

* Finland has deliberately made draft dodging almost impossible. Fleeing abroad is no option, as to apply for passport one has to present his military discharge certificate. Likewise, neither homosexualism nor committing a lesser crime qualify ''per sé'' an exemption. Some 80% of Finnish men complete their tour of duty, with 14% being washed out in service, 2% completing the civilian service and 3% being exempted for medical reasons. A minority will end up in prison on refusal.
* A classic example of RealLife RefugeInAudacity: upon receiving his draft notice, ''Berkeley Barb'' editor (and later, technology guru) [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Felsenstein Lee Felsenstein]] wrote an editorial stating his intention to submit to the draft - so that he could learn military tactics that he could then use against the US government. When he got the the induction post, they told him that he'd been deferred, without any official explanation, [[BriarPatching exactly as he planned]].

** One variation of the college deferment gambit became an issue in the 1992 Democratic presidential primaries when Arkansas Governor UsefulNotes/BillClinton had signed a pledge in 1969 to join the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, or ROTC, program of the University of Arkansas, only to back out of the pledge[[note]]a letter Clinton wrote to the head of the school's ROTC program, which he had kept, included remarks thanking him for sparing Clinton from the draft, as he could not have done otherwise without "spoiling his own political viability"[[/note]]; a factor which drew criticism - especially in light of the fact one of his primary rivals; Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, had lost part of one leg in combat; though that controversy (as well as the [[YourCheatingHeart Gennifer Flowers sex scandal]]) might have cost him a shot at victory in the New Hampshire primary[[note]]won by former Democratic Senator Paul Tsongas of neighboring Massachusetts[[/note]], it ultimately didn't hurt him in the long run, as he ended up winning a tough fight for the Democratic presidential nomination before ousting incumbent Republican President UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush in the general election.

* UsefulNote/MuhammadAli famously insisted on going to jail and paying fines over being drafted into service for the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar, which caused his boxing license to be temporarily revoked.

* There's the Joke about the fox, the Bunny and the Bear who want to avoid conscription. The Fox thinks he is going into Military intelligence pretends to be stupid. The Bunny thinks he is going to be a spy cuts off his ears. The Bear thinks he is going to become a fighter pulls his teeth and claws and is rejected because he is too fat (or has flat feet).

* Creator/DonaldTrump avoided serving in Vietnam by a report that he had bone spurs in one of his feet...written by a doctor who was a tenant in a building owned by Trump's father. Trump has demonstrated no ill effects from said spurs before or since, and hasn't been entirely clear on which foot was affected.

* One issue of ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'' had a comic satirizing army life. At one point, the protagonist tries to get out of enlisting by pretending to be gay. It doesn't work, because the psychiatrist is gay.

** Similar rioting happened in Wisconsin, where the largely recently immigrated Belgian community revolted against the perception that they were being preferentially drafted so that rich WASP's and more settled English-speaking immigrants could dodge service in the Union armies. Troops desperately needed for the front lines, at a time when the Confederacy was winning all the battles and looked like driving to Washington, had to be diverted to Wisconsin to restore order.

* ''Film/SergeantYork'' is [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034167/ a movie]] about... well, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_C._York Sergeant York]] and how he was a pacifist due to his understanding of the Bible, and so attempted to resist being drafted. But he gets drafted anyway, as the church he followed was so remote that the draft board couldn't prove it even existed for the purposes of a Conscientious Objector exemption. As a country boy from the Appalachian Mountains, he was extremely effective at killing Germans and became a famous American hero, and the most decorated American soldier of WWI.

* If you enact the Conscription defense edict in ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}} 4'', the Tropican emigration rate increases as people leave the country entirely to avoid the draft.

* There was a WWII-era Daffy Duck cartoon, ''WesternAnimation/DrafteeDaffy'', where Daffy was trying to evade "that dope from the draft board". Daffy's approach is simply to run and hide from anyone trying to draft him until the drafts stop. Unfortunatly, the person trying to give him the draft card, the aptly named "Little Man from the Draft Board", is about as persistent as Droopy.

** College deferments were controversal in the U.S. during the Vietnam-era.

* ''Series/MotherlandFortSalem'': Scylla (disguised as someone else) says her parents had refused to serve after they were conscripted into the Army, who killed them as a result. Assuming this is true, it's probably why she joined the Spree, a violent radical group fighting the US government.

* There are a few examples on the ''Website/DarwinAward'' site about people trying to injure themselves so they'll be ineligible for the draft and succeeding a little too well.

* In Italy escape from the draft partially fueled a ''civil war'', as draft dodgers in the former Kingdom of Two Sicilies who didn't injury themselves would join the 'brigands' (many of which were actually [[LaResistance fighting a guerrilla against the forced unification]]) that infested the area at the time.

* A ComicBook/DonaldDuck story presents Donald as having pulled it ''accidentally'', as his notification had been lost in the mail and he was under the impression he had been exempted due his duck physiology giving him flat feet and making him short and chubby-an argument shot down by the general on his case for the accidental dodging being a duck himself. When the army finds out and decides to draft him he tries to get exempted by crouching just enough to appear too short, only for [[GenreSavvy the general seeing it coming and straightening him]] (Donald is ''just'' tall enough to qualify). Then, at the end of basic training, he asks for a license before deployment because his nephews are coming home from the Junior Woodchucks camp and he needs to find them a new home... At which point [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone the general realizes he's forcing the sole caretaker of three orphans to serve in the army]] and exempts him.

* Some Russian people buy fake PhD diplomas, as in Russia PhD holders are exempt from draft. Sellers claim that those diplomas would withstand any kind of scrutiny. Validity of that claim is hard to estimate.