To the editor: He could have faced a fate similar to that of Bob Zaugh, who resisted the draft in the Vietnam War. (“A draft resister, a judge and the moment that still unites them after 54 years,” June 14)
Vietnamese patriots gained independence from France in 1954. I did not want to fight for the French puppet government that moved into South Vietnam during the French withdrawal, and I did not want to flee my country if it recruited me.
Southern leader Ngo Dinh Diem refused to participate in the 1956 elections for all of Vietnam and tried to secede. The Eisenhower administration backed Diem and his attempt to divide Vietnam.
In World War II, my father was shot in the chest by a German soldier during an ambush and lost his right hand to gangrene. He said the United States trampled on everything he and his generation fought for in Europe and Asia. He surprised me when he offered to support me in Canada during the draft for the Vietnam War.
Those of us who were born during the French and American wars in Vietnam were the last generation to be drafted before we had the right to vote, votes that were denied to many minorities in the United States until 1964. Large numbers of draftees changed my destiny and my life, and that should This will never happen again unless we suffer a major attack like Pearl Harbor.
Keith Ensminger, Merced, California.
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To the editor: Congratulations to Times reporter Doug Smith for his first column on the draft and Vietnam.
Being the same age as Zaugh, I am a Vietnam veteran. Before the draft, as was Zaugh, I ended up being drafted and serving.
I was very conflicted and considered going to Canada. My father was a commander in World War II and instilled in me the need to serve. If he hadn't served, he would have broken off my relationship with my father.
So I reluctantly served and then returned home to demonstrate against the Vietnam War.
James Borden, Manhattan Beach
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To the editor: In 1992, 25 years after Zaugh appeared before Judge Harry Pregerson, I clerked for the judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Basically, I helped him by summarizing the facts of a case and the relevant law before the three-judge appeals panel heard the parties' oral arguments.
In one particular case, I informed the judge that the self-represented appellant (the plaintiff in the lower court) devoted much of her written appeal brief to complaints that she was not given time to argue her case during the lower court hearing on Their case. failed claim.
At the oral argument, the appellant stood at the lectern with her husband. When she stumbled while presenting her case, her husband began to speak. He was neither a lawyer nor a party to the parties, so he had no right to be heard.
As the senior presiding judge, Pregerson quietly asked the other two judges if they would object to hearing the husband. When they responded no, she told the appellant and her husband that they could continue. The two spoke for several minutes before she was given the opportunity to the other side.
As I watched the couple walk down the hallway, I couldn't tell what they were thinking or feeling. However, I witnessed what Zaugh had benefited from 25 years earlier: a willingness to listen to the parties argue their cases. Although technically inappropriate, Pregerson would hear from both the named plaintiff and her husband.
Frieda Taylor, Culver City
