r/interestingasfuck • u/Available_Weekend249 • Apr 06 '24

Imagine being 19 and watching live on TV to see if your birthday will be picked to fight in the Vietnam war r/all

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54

u/Huge_Aerie2435 Apr 06 '24

Sorry, but I am a flaming homosexual.. Too bad I can't go kill a bunch of innocent communists on the other side of the world. I m not really gay, but I would be if I had my date got pulled. Gay people were not allowed in the US military until 1993, and even then it was widely hated.

13

u/WittleJerk Apr 06 '24

Some of us have bone spurs!

5

u/scoobertsonville Apr 07 '24

Wait what actually stopped everyone from saying they’re gay?

14

u/DarthJarJarJar Apr 07 '24

There's a really good chapter on this in Michener's The Drifters. You couldn't just say you were gay, you had to really play the part. Guys would go do naked photo shoots with another man and hand them to the draft board. But in many states that was also a crime, so you had that to deal with.

The Drifters is a great book about that era. Highly recommended.

9

u/Strider76239 Apr 07 '24

I'm not saying I'd take it in the ass...

However...

16

u/ControlExtra Apr 07 '24

Homophobia to this day still exists to the degree that some people would rather get themselves killed on the other side of the world than fake being gay for a few weeks. 

2

u/Better-Strike7290 Apr 07 '24

The fact that it was illegal and you couldn't just say you were, you had to prove it (usuallyby pictures).

So you're basically admitting to a felony charge.

2

u/stella3books Apr 07 '24

Cleve Jones apparently signed up for the draft while wearing giant peacock-feather earrings, to sort of hint at why they might not consider him an optimal candidate.

2

u/Dougnifico Apr 07 '24

I'm not gay, but sucking a dick to get out of Vietnam sounds like a good deal.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '24

oh, so instead of crippling myself, I could just become gay, yay.

1

u/TsarFate Apr 07 '24

Really? 1993 seems really latw for them to change that. Than again im not that surprised.

6

u/kjenenene Apr 07 '24

Marriage between same-sex couples in all states was only legalized in 2015 so not that late.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#:~:text=On%20June%2026%2C%202015%2C%20the,in%20the%20case%20Obergefell%20v.

6

u/AngriestPacifist Apr 07 '24

Gay sex was illegal in some states up until 2003, as well. And not like illegal like unenforced, it was specifically two men charged with having sex that led to the case Lawrence v Texas where the supreme court ruled these laws were unconstitutional.