President Joe Biden will be heading to Vietnam later this month, the first such trip by a United States president in 30 years. On this highly symbolic journey, Biden will certainly come face to face with some of the same questions and memories that have haunted him since the Vietnam War: why didn’t he, like so many of his peers, fight in Vietnam?
Biden was born in 1942, and in the late 1960s he was a law school student at the University of Delaware. Although his two older brothers, Joe and Hal, had already served in the Navy, Biden’s academic and family life had thus far insulated him from the war in Vietnam. He completed his undergraduate degree in1966 and moved on to study law at the University of Delaware.
At the time, U.S. involvement in Vietnam continued to escalate. Millions of Americans – many of them just out of high school – were drafted into the U.S. military, thousands of whom would go in time to serve in Vietnam. The war, and the anti-war protests that resulted, both domestically and abroad, were front and center in the minds of many Americans.
Yet, as the people close to him today remind us, Biden was not one of these people. He chose not to protest or fight in the Vietnam War. Instead, he chose to focus on his law studies and his eventual political career.
Biden’s reasons for not enlisting were varied. These included health problems that resulted in the rejection of his draft applications by the Selective Service, as well as the fact that it was easy for Biden and other educated young men to receive deferments for college. Biden himself admitted, in a 2003 interview with the New York Times, that he was “reluctant to go” to Vietnam as a soldier, a sentiment he shared with many of his peers.
Whether or not we agree with his decisions, President Biden’s visit to Vietnam this month carries profound symbolism and significance. It will not only be the first trip by a U.S. president in 30 years, but also a chance for Biden to learn more about the country, build new relationships, and, perhaps, to at least in some small way make up for the choices he made so many years ago.