Did Jerry Duane Byers die for Dick Cheney?

[SoCalDem]

http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:OZqf6s_Pz1QJ:38.144.96.23/tacitus/archives/000696.html+%22Texas+Air+National+Guard%22+1972+accidents&hl=en&ie=UTF-8



Since we are on the topic of GOP war heroes...

Here are six names from the Vietnam War Memorial Wall:

JERRY DUANE BYERS
LEROY ROBERT CARDENAS
WALTER ELMER HANDY
RICHARD THOMAS KASTNER
DOUGLAS TYRONE PATRICK
RICHARD JOHN SWEENEY

They were all drafted, sent to Vietnam, and killed. They also had something else in common: They were all from Dick Cheney’s hometown, Casper, Wyoming. Did they know Cheney? Casper is not a big town.

Cheney refused to serve in Vietnam. He received four 2-S draft deferments -- granted to students -- from 1963 through 1965 while he was a student at the University of Wyoming. He married Lynne in 1964, and was thus banned from the draft.

But in October 1965, the Selective Service announced that married men without children could then be drafted. Exactly nine months and two days later -- on July 28, 1966 -- his first child was born. Cheney hadn't waited until her birth before he sought a 3-A deferment classification -- given to those with dependents. He did so when Lynne was only 10 weeks pregnant.

Cheney said to a reporter in 1989, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." Byers, Cardenas, Handy, Kastner, Patrick and Sweeney probably had “other priorities,” too, but they served anyway. Which one of them got drafted in Cheney’s place?



Posted by: Rick in Davis at June 10, 2003 04:55 AM

[grasswire]

1. good job, Rick

I did some of the same research in 1999 for Bush's substitute from Midland-Houston. Some poor fellow went in his place, too. One of the GIs drafted that year died on his first day in 'Nam, from enemy fire in a rice paddy.