The large cohort of Baby Boomers and late Silent Generationers allowed for a steep increase in the number of exemptions and deferments, especially for college and graduate students.

It was the YCAC that imported the concept of draft-card burning from the United States and ushered in a new form of resistance to conscription, active non-compliance.

Instead of merely not registering (passive non-compliance with the National Service Scheme), the young conscripts actively demonstrated their distaste for the government's actions by destroying their registration cards.

There were millions of men who avoided the draft, and many thousands who openly resisted the conscription system and actively opposed the war.

[9] The head of U.S. President Richard Nixon's task force on the all-volunteer military reported in 1970 that the number of resisters was "expanding at an alarming rate" and that the government was "almost powerless to apprehend and prosecute them".

"Draft Dodger Rag", a 1965 song by Phil Ochs, circumvented laws against counseling evasion by employing satire to provide a how-to list of available deferments: ruptured spleen, poor eyesight, flat feet, asthma, and many more.

[16] Folksinger Arlo Guthrie lampooned the paradox of seeking a deferment by acting crazy in his song "Alice's Restaurant": "I said, 'I wanna kill!

[18] Another text pertinent to draft-age men was Jules Feiffer's cartoon novella from the 1950s, Munro, later a short film, in which a four-year-old boy is drafted by mistake.

[36] According to a 1978 book by former members of President Gerald Ford's Clemency Board, 210,000 Americans were accused of draft offenses and 30,000 left the country.

In the end, the Canadian government maintained the right to prosecute these deserters, but in practice left them alone and instructed border guards not to ask questions relating to the issue.

[50] In Canada, many American Vietnam War evaders received pre-emigration counseling and post-emigration assistance from locally based groups.

In September 1974, President Gerald R. Ford offered a conditional amnesty program for draft dodgers that required them to work in alternative service occupations for periods of six to 24 months.

Then in 1977, one day after his inauguration, President Jimmy Carter fulfilled a campaign promise by offering unconditional pardons to anyone who had evaded the draft and requested one.

[72] American draft evaders who left for Canada and became prominent there include politician Jim Green, gay rights advocate Michael Hendricks, attorney Jeffry House, author Keith Maillard, playwright John Murrell, television personality Eric Nagler, film critic Jay Scott, and musician Jesse Winchester.

[73][74] A number of autobiographical novels were written by draft evaders who went to Canada[75][76] Books such as Morton Redner's Getting Out (1971) and Mark Satin's Confessions of a Young Exile (1976), Allen Morgan's Dropping Out in 3/4 Time (1972), and Daniel Peters's Border Crossing (1978) all portrayed their protagonists' views, motives, activities, and relationships in detail.

[75][76] A critic noted that they contained some surprises: It is to be expected that the draft dodgers denounce the state as an oppressive bureaucracy, using the vernacular of the time to rail against "the machine" and "the system."

What is more surprising is their general resistance to mass movements, a sentiment that contradicts the association of the draft dodger with sixties protest found in more recent work by [Scott] Turow or [Mordecai] Richler.

[77]Later memoirs by Vietnam-era draft evaders who went to Canada include Donald Simons's I Refuse (1992),[78][79] George Fetherling's Travels by Night (1994),[80][81] and Mark Frutkin's Erratic North (2008).

In a 1970s High Times article, American singer-songwriter and future conservative activist Ted Nugent stated that he took crystal meth, and urinated and defecated in his pants before his physical, in order to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War.

In 1989, approximately two decades after the fact, Chase revealed on a television talk show that he avoided the Vietnam War by making several false claims to his draft board, including that he harbored homosexual tendencies.

[88][89] Conservative talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh reportedly avoided the Vietnam draft because of anal cysts.

[90] By 2006 politicians whom opponents had accused of improperly avoiding the draft included George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

Nevertheless, a "lengthy series of hearings, an FBI investigation and numerous postponements and delays" took him to age 26 at which point he was no longer eligible for the draft.

[95][97] Donald Trump, who served as President of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and since 2025, graduated from college in the spring of 1968, making him eligible to be drafted and sent to Vietnam; but he received a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels.

[101][102][103][104] An Associated Press (AP) story, run in The Washington Times, states: "In Promises to Keep, a memoir that was published [in 2007] …, Mr. Biden never mentions his asthma, recounting an active childhood, work as a lifeguard and football exploits in high school".