During the Vietnam war, Dick Cheney applied for and received no less than five deferments from the draft. Decades later he told a reporter that he had “other priorities” that outweighed going to Vietnam. So because Dick Cheney sat out the war, another young man went in his place, and that soldier may have been among the 58,000 who died or the 300,000 who were permanently disabled in Vietnam.
During his Senate confirmation hearings as defense secretary in 1989, Cheney falsely claimed under oath, “I would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called.”
This is an interesting historical footnote today in light of news that the Disabled Veterans of American, better known as the DAV, has rescinded its invitation to Cheney to speak at their convention next month because his security requirements would have caused extreme physical strain on DAV members.

Cheney would have required the predominantly elderly veterans, many of whom lost limbs in battle, to assemble in the meeting hall at 6:30 a.m., after which the doors would be closed and no one could leave the room, even to go to the restroom, until after Cheney’s speech. Since Cheney was scheduled to begin his remarks at 8:30 a.m., and probably would have spoken for the better part of an hour, the vets would have been trapped in the room for nearly three hours.

“It was a huge imposition on our delegates,” added David Autry, [a] Disabled American Veterans official.

Autry said vets would’ve had to get up “at Oh-dark-30 and try to get breakfast and showered and get their prosthetics on.”

Once inside, they “could not leave the meeting room, and the bathrooms are outside,” he said.

A Cheney aide denied that it was his security that caused the rift:

Spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said the two-hour rule is “a recommendation, not a requirement,” and “we always work to make sure the bathrooms are within the security perimeters.”

“The vice president would never let us do anything that didn’t help facilitate the needs of our veterans,” Mitchell added.

Another interesting note about Cheney’s draft dodging is that he apparently lied about it during the Senate hearings on his nomination as defense secretary in the Bush I administration. When asked about his deferments, Cheney falsely asserted under oath that he “would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called.” He was called — five times — and each time he came up with a way to escape service.