Melbourne- Bob Manz was 19 years old when, in 1967, he received his conscription notice for service in the Australian Army during the Vietnam War.
“I was about to turn 20,” he told Al Jazeera. “It didn’t seem real to me – it never felt real to me that I could finish up in Vietnam with bullets flying around.”
In 1964, the Australian government had committed to sending troops to Vietnam in support of the United States.
While on a trip to the White House, then-Prime Minster Harold Holt said his nation would go “all the way with LBJ (Lyndon B Johnson)” – even if it meant conscripting young men like Bob in to “national service”.
Yet Bob – and many young men like him – would take the dramatic step of becoming a draft resister; someone who was required to join the army for service by law, but would actively refuse to do so.
“When I became a draft resister I was doing so on the basis that I wanted to do all I could to hinder the Australian government’s participation in the war on the basis it was an unjust war,” he said.
Bobbie Oliver, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, is currently researching and writing a book on conscientious objectors and draft resisters.
Her research has revealed that between 1961 and 1972, more than 60,000 Australians served in the Vietnam War, a third of them conscripts.
Of the 521 Australians to die in action, nearly half were people drafted into the military.
But conscription was also met fierce resistance.
Oliver said conscription was unpopular because it had not been secured with the consent of the public or Parliament. (Aljazeera)