While tens of thousands of American servicemen were drafted, fought, and died in Vietnam, there were also tens of thousands of conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War. One of them was Army Private Richard D. Bucklin.
Born and raised in Denver, Bucklin had been serving in Germany. He became convinced that his Army duties were supporting a morally repugnant war, so Bucklin fled to Sweden. He lived there in exile for 4½ years.
Hoping for clemency after the war had ended and eager to get back to life on American soil, he returned to Fort Carson, south of Denver. Commanding General James F. Hamlet was not pleased. Bucklin’s case became an example of the Army’s treatment of conscientious objecting soldiers who had gone AWOL. Bucklin was court-martialed and sentenced to 15 months of hard labor at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Read more about Richard Bucklin and other Vietnam era conscientious objectors in the Roger Neville Williams papers at UW’s American Heritage Center.
For more information, visit the American Heritage Center site.