Draft-Defying Doctors

More and more young Americans are being rejected for the draft on physical or mental grounds. From 29.9% two years ago, the turndown rate jumped to 46% last July. Is the new generation declining in body and mind?

Hardly. The young have simply faced up to the cutoff in job and graduate-school deferments and instead have mastered the art of beating the draft with medical or psychiatric excuses. Moreover, they are getting crucial help from a growing number of psychiatrists and other physicians who write letters attesting to ailments that disqualify the registrants for military service.

Ethical Issue. A few of the letters are flagrantly fraudulent. One New York woman psychiatrist has written as many as 75 letters a week, charging up to $250 each to certify men as emotionally unfit for military duties. Selective Service physicians now recognize and ignore her recommendations. Several authors of equally dubious letters have been reported to the U.S. Army Surgeon General, though it is questionable whether he has any authority to act against them. The Justice Department could prosecute such doctors for impeding the draft or making fraudulent statements to the Government, but proving the charges might be difficult. Local medical societies can also suspend an errant member, a crushing professional blow, but much the same effect can be achieved by his colleagues' consensus that he is unreliable. Writers of truly fake statements do get that treatment.

Actually, few doctors are willing to take such risks, and most of their letters are legitimate. They do not invent diseases but look extra hard for disabilities that disqualify their patients. This is not difficult, since the Selective Service rejects men with dental braces or any ailment that requires frequent treatment--for example, asthma, allergies, diabetes, hemorrhoids, high blood pressure. It wants no habitual drug users, extremely ugly men or those adorned with obscene tattoos.

Whatever the ethics of the matter, some antiwar doctors argue that tax lawyers perform a similar service by searching for legitimate if sometimes little-used exemptions. But many doctors are dismayed that the vast majority of medical deferments are going to affluent, educated whites. One reason: whites see doctors far more often and thus can document their diseases.

Beyond Letters. Many doctors are particularly disturbed by the inability of the poor to obtain exemptions on psychiatric grounds. "Draft evasion is a middle-class activity," says Dr. Peter La Valle, a San Francisco psychiatrist. "Poor people aren't allowed to be officially neurotic in this country." To eliminate this inequity, many physicians have started organizations like the Medical Committee for Human Rights, which has chapters serving youths in 30 cities across the country. Says Dr. Eli Messinger, a Manhattan psychiatrist who chairs the committee: "We feel that draft physicals are too rapid, and that as a consequence many illnesses are not detected."

In fact, the Army inducts an embarrassing number of soldiers who turn out to be physically or emotionally unfit and end up requiring extensive care or lifetime disability pensions. Army doctors who let such men through are required to explain their errors. To avoid such difficulties, and because the pool of qualified men has so far been adequate for the Army's needs, doctors give draftees with borderline conditions the benefit of the doubt. All this helps men armed with doctors' letters, which Army physicians have no time to verify and would just as soon accept.

Magic Age. Letters are not always necessary. Many healthy registrants have skipped a doctor's help and still faked their way to 4-F or 1-Y status.* Some have raised their blood pressure to an unacceptable level by popping amphetamines before reporting for medical examinations. Others have convinced physicians that they suffer from Meniere's syndrome, an inner ear disease that causes severe dizziness and nausea.

An ingenious youth aggravated a mild hernia by lifting 100-lb. sacks of sand prior to his exam. Doctors disagreed on the seriousness of his condition, but agreed that anyone so determined to avoid service would make a bad soldier and excused him for psychological reasons. Another failed color tests until he was awarded a 4-F classification, while a married registrant succeeded in convincing doctors that his wife would go crazy in his absence. The prize for determination goes to a six-footer who managed by careful dieting to keep his weight below the minimum for his full height until he reached the magic age of 26.

* 4-Fs are categorically exempted from military service; 1-Ys are exempted except during a declared war or national emergency.

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