A lot happened in the year 1969.
On the twentieth of January, Richard Nixon was sworn in as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. This was just the beginning of what would turn out to be one of the most controversial presidencies in American history.
The civil rights movement surged forward despite the assassination of its beloved leader, Martin Luther King, Jr, the year before. African-Americans continued to take to the streets and demand equal rights, undeterred by the rampant hate crimes and police brutality of the time.
The Vietnam War continued to tear the country apart as more and more of America’s young men were shipped off to battle and fewer and fewer of them came back. Riots broke out from east to west, causing chaos all over the country as police struggled to keep the unruly crowds at bay.
And, on the fourteenth of September, Thomas Allen, a young man from Framingham, Massachusetts, turned 18.
Thomas was a typical American teenager. He was a young man of average build whose sandy blonde hair stood in stark contrast to his dark brown eyes. A senior in high school, he spent most of his time chasing after girls, listening to The White Album and Yellow Submarine, and imagining what college would be like. Like most of his peers, he loved baseball, didn’t particularly care for school, and hated the war.
Thomas was among the masses who took to the streets to speak out against the war in Vietnam. Whenever the opportunity arose, he went into the city to protest, bringing his friends David and Grace along with him. This particular day?Thomas’s eighteenth birthday?was one of those occasions.
Earlier that morning, Thomas, David and Grace had piled in David’s ‘69 Chevy Nova, megaphones and picket signs in tow, and set off for Boston. Thomas had told his father, a decorated World War II veteran who idolized president Eisenhower and constantly complained about “those damn hippies,” that he was headed up to New Hampshire for a camping trip with his friends. If Thomas’s father had known where his son was actually headed, he would have been furious?but if all went as planned, he would never find out.
The windows down and the radio on, the three teenagers cruised down the highway. David rested one hand leisurely on the steering wheel, fiddling with the radio with the other. Thomas propped his feet on the dashboard, and Grace sat in the back seat, absent-mindedly playing with the flowers she had so carefully arranged in her hair that morning. David was still struggling to find a radio station when the static coming from the speakers was suddenly replaced by a deep, monotone voice saying something about the Vietnam War.
“Hey, turn that up!” Grace exclaimed from the back seat, leaning forward so she could listen.
David cranked up the volume. The voice on the radio was clearer now, more audible: “Protesters all over the world are assembling in record numbers today to speak out against the Vietnam War. Opposition to the war has escalated dramatically over the past few months as the government has discussed the possibility of reinstating the draft in order to fill vacancies in the armed forces.”
Thomas shook his head. “Man, I don’t know what I’d do if I got drafted,” he said absently, staring straight ahead as the Boston skyline loomed in the distance.
David smirked in response. “That’s easy, man. Canada.”
“I hear it’s lovely this time of year,” Grace chimed in from the back seat. Thomas laughed before turning his attention back to the open road ahead of him.
Before long they had arrived in the city. After what seemed like hours of searching, they finally found a parking space, and they lost no time in getting out of the car and taking inventory of their surroundings.
The city was packed. Protesters lined the streets, chanting and picketing, and police stood at every street corner, ready to strike should the crowds become violent. Thomas gaped as he took in the sight before him. He had never seen anything like it, but he refused to be intimidated. He wasted no time in wading into the crowd, David and Grace trailing behind him.
It seemed like hours of shouldering past throngs of people before they reached Boston Common, the center of the action. They stood at the edge of the city square, surrounded by protesters on all sides. The first strains of Bob Dylan’s Masters of War blasted from a set of speakers in the center of the Common, mingling with the chorus of anti-war slogans that were being chanted over and over again by the crowd. A man stood on a platform about twenty feet away, a group of protesters gathered around him.
“Hell no,” he chanted into the megaphone, “We won’t go!”
The crowd repeated after him, pumping their fists in the air and waving their picket signs above their heads. David had wandered off in the opposite direction, but Thomas and Grace wasted no time in pushing through the throng until they were in the forefront. They chanted along with the rest of the protesters: “Hell no! We won’t go!”
They stopped short, however, when a sudden commotion broke out nearby. Thomas jumped, startled by the uproar, and scanned his surroundings for the source of the noise. His heart stopped when he saw that a nasty brawl had broken out within the crowd?and David was caught in the middle. 
A few moments earlier, David had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time when he found himself standing right beside a group of protesters who were antagonizing a policeman. Unable to subdue the protesters, the policeman called in reinforcements: before long a full-on fight had broken out, and David had been inadvertently dragged into the chaos.
“David!” Thomas called urgently, frantically making his way towards his friend. He was just a few feet away when suddenly a policeman grabbed David by the shoulder and raised his club as if to strike him. “No!” Thomas screamed, pushing through the crowd until he reached David. “Don’t hurt him!”
The split second that followed seemed to happen in slow motion. Thomas wedged himself between David and the policeman, acting as a barrier between his friend and the policeman’s club. The look of anger on the policeman’s face was the last thing Thomas saw before it all went black.

***

That night, Thomas woke up in a prison cell with a black eye and a splitting headache. He had been arrested along with David, Grace, and a hand-full of other protesters: they had all been crammed into one holding cell, and the police chief informed them that they would all be stuck there until their families could come bail them out.
It wasn’t long before Mr. Allen, Thomas’s father, arrived at the precinct. He had gotten the call from the sheriff while he and his wife were eating dinner: furious to discover that his son had not only lied to him, but gotten himself arrested (at a war protest, no less), Mr. Allen stormed out of the house, jumped in the car, and headed straight for Boston.
He walked through the doors of the precinct, his face stoic, and informed the woman at the front desk that he was here for his son, Thomas Allen. The sheriff brought Thomas out to the lobby and removed his handcuffs, and Thomas silently followed his father out to the car.
All the way home, Mr. Allen stared straight ahead, his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel. Thomas said nothing. In the sideview mirror, the city lights of Boston grew smaller and farther away with each passing moment.
They had been driving for what felt like an eternity when Mr. Allen suddenly pulled over on the side of the road. He turned the key in the ignition and shut the engine off.  He said nothing for a prolonged moment.
Finally he spoke up. “I am ashamed, Thomas,” Mr. Allen said, staring blankly ahead. “Ashamed that my son?my own son?would behave like this.”
“Dad, I?”
Mr. Allen turned to look at his son. “Do you have any idea what I sacrificed for this country? For you? And this is how you repay me?”
“Dad, I’m trying to stand up for what’s right,” Thomas replied, staring defiantly back at his father.
“What’s right? What’s right is to serve your country!”
“No, dad!” Thomas exploded. “This war is wrong! There’s no purpose, no point to it?they’re killing innocent people over there!”
“Wrong? It’s wrong to defend your country?” Mr. Allen responded, anger evident in his eyes. “I’ll have you know it’s noble to serve your country. It’s brave.”
“Brave, dad? It’s brave to attack whole villages of innocent civilians, to kill innocent people? There’s nothing brave about fighting in this war, dad! Nothing!”
Mr. Allen was silent for a long moment. His voice was calm and measured when he finally spoke again. “There will be no more of this?this protesting, Thomas. No son of mine will be out on the streets making a fool of himself with those damn hippies. And that’s final.”
With that, Mr. Allen turned the key in the ignition and started the car, and soon they were back on the road. Mr. Allen’s eyes remained glued to the road ahead.  In the sideview mirror, the Boston skyline disappeared around the corner.  No one said a word.

***

Soon it was December and the icy chill of another long New England winter had just begun to set in. The leaves had fallen off the trees and a white blanket of snow had draped itself over the landscape, making the world appear fresh and new.
Thomas walked home from school, his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets and a scarf wound tightly around his neck to fend off the cold. As he walked he thought about what his social studies teacher had talked about in class today: the draft.
President Nixon had just announced that the government would be using a lottery system to draft young men into the army. That meant any young man between the age of 18 and 26 was at risk of being drafted, and that included Thomas. He hadn’t been to a protest in months, but his opposition to the war hadn’t changed: the prospect of being drafted was incomprehensible.
He did his best to put it out of his mind. Afterall, he told himself, there was no use worrying about something that was beyond his control.
When he reached his house, he climbed the steps to the front door and went in. He dropped his backpack by the door and hung up his coat. “Hey, mom,” he called cheerily as he made his way to the kitchen.
When he rounded the corner, he was met with the sight of his mother standing by the kitchen table, holding an unopened letter in her hand. She looked pale, frightened as she looked at her son, a worried expression on her face. “This came for you in the mail today, Tommy.”
Thomas walked over to where his mother stood. He took the letter in his hands and held it up to the light. He didn’t even need to open it to know what it was.
The color drained from his face as he ripped open the envelope and pulled out the letter. He cleared his throat before reading aloud the message typed in bold black letters at the top of the page: ORDER TO REPORT FOR INDUCTION. It was then that his mother began to cry.
He frantically scanned the rest of the letter, searching for some confirmation that this wasn’t real, that it was just some sort of sick joke. He could find none.
Thomas didn’t say a word. He just folded up the letter, made his way upstairs, and went to his room.
Thomas shut his bedroom door behind him. He leaned against the doorjamb and looked vacantly at the room before him. He looked at the books that were stacked neatly on the shelves, the records that were scattered across the floor, and finally the poster hanging on the wall that featured a brightly colored peace sign beneath the words “Give Peace A Chance” in bold white letters. His eyes lingered on the poster for a long moment. The peace sign seemed to stare back at him, mocking him.
Thomas slumped against the doorjamb, collapsed to the floor, and began to cry.
How could he, a pacifist vehemently opposed to the war and everything it stood for, be among the first to be drafted? The government was forcing him to go off to war and fight for a cause he didn’t believe in, a cause that stood in direct opposition to all the values he held dear. He was being forced to put his life on the line, and for what? To fight in a purposeless war, a war that stood for nothing and accomplished nothing?
He knew exactly what his father would say when he got home and saw the draft notice sitting on the kitchen counter. He’d make some comment about how going off to war would be good for Thomas, how he needed to learn the meaning of true bravery. But Thomas knew that there would be nothing brave about fighting in Vietnam. Nothing brave about killing Vietnamese people for the sake of a cause he didn’t believe in. No, fighting in this war would not be an act of bravery: it would be an act of cowardice.
Thomas shook his head, burying his face in his hands. As far as he was concerned, his life was over. He was trapped.
He dried his eyes and sat up, resting his head against the doorframe. His eyes scanned the room once more and stopped when they landed on a rolled up piece of paper that sat beside his desk. After eyeing it for a moment, he realized what it was?a map of North America that his dad had given him for his birthday when he was a kid. And it was then that a memory suddenly flashed through his mind.
It was September. Thomas and his friends David and Grace were in the car on the way to Boston. “Man, I don’t know what I’d do if I got drafted,” Thomas had said. David had laughed and replied, “That’s easy, man. Canada.”
Canada, Thomas thought, his eyes widening. That’s it.
For as long as he could remember he had been hearing stories about “draft dodgers,” young men who fled to Canada to escape the war. Most people viewed them as cowards who selfishly refused to defend their country in its time of need; Thomas, however, saw them as heroes. The way he saw it, men who dodged the draft were exiled from their homes, alienated from their families, and banished to a foreign country, all for the sake of doing what’s right and standing up for their beliefs. To him, that was bravery.
It didn’t take long for Thomas to make up his mind. He knew exactly what he had to do.
He hoisted himself to his feet and made his way across the room, grabbing the rolled-up map and spreading it out across his desk. He eyed the map laid out before him, his gaze traveling from the golden coast of California to the vast plains of Texas and eventually stopping at his home state of Massachusetts. He found his hometown, Framingham, with his pointer finger and carefully traced a route upwards until he reached the Canadian border.
With a sense of urgency Thomas folded the map and slipped it into his back pocket. He looked around the room, the beginnings of an escape plan formulating in his mind as he took inventory of what he would need for his trek to Canada. He had to act fast: there was no time to waste.
He grabbed a duffel bag from under his bed and filled it with some of his personal belongings?pictures of his friends and family, his favorite book, and his journal, among others?and things he’d need to survive the trek to Canada?a couple changes of clothes, a canteen full of water, and some money for food and transportation.
He zipped up the duffel bag and set it aside, once again making his way over to his desk. He grabbed a notebook and ripped out a piece of lined paper, picked up a pen, and began to write.
Dear Mom & Dad, the letter began. By the time you read this, I’ll be long gone. He went on to explain that he had been drafted and, instead of fighting in the war, he had decided to flee to Canada. He told them that he simply could not fight in a war he didn’t support, that he hoped they understood. He told them that he loved them, that he would write to them as soon as he crossed the border and that they shouldn’t worry about him?he’d be fine. He signed the letter, folded it up, and sealed it in an envelope.

***

Thomas waited until both his parents were fast asleep to sneak downstairs. With his duffel bag slung over his shoulder and his map still folded in his back pocket, he left the letter on the kitchen table, took one final look around his childhood home, and slipped silently out the back door.
The door shut behind him with a soft click. He stood there, hand still on the doorknob, for a long moment. His eyes scanned his surroundings: the backyard where he had played as a child, the rickety old fence that stood between him and the outside world, and beyond that, the open road.
The pathway to freedom was laid out in front of him. All Thomas had to do was hop the fence, start down the road, and jump on a bus to the border and he would be free: free from the war, from the tyranny of his father, from the unfairness of life.  And yet, for reasons unknown to him, Thomas couldn’t bring himself to leave his back porch.
He stood frozen, his hand still glued to the doorknob. Suddenly the gravity of the situation clouded his mind: if he left, if he dodged the draft, he would never be allowed to come back. He would never see his parents, his siblings, his friends again. His life would never be the same. And that was when it dawned on him: he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave.
He was a coward.
Thomas slipped through the back door once again,  but this time it was bondage instead of freedom that waited for him on the other side. He took the letter he had left on the kitchen table and tore it into pieces, tossing it in the trash. He went upstairs to his room and shut the door behind him.
Once again he stood in his bedroom, leaning weakly against the doorjamb. Once again his eyes were drawn to the poster hanging on the wall that showcased a peace sign framed by the words “Give Peace A Chance.” Once again the peace sign seemed to taunt him.
Thomas made his way across the room and stood before the poster. He studied it carefully, his eyes scanning over the image on the poster and the words spread across it. He stood there for a long moment, unmoving.
Without warning he reached for the poster, ripped it off the wall, and tore it in half. He crumpled up its remnants and cast them aside. What remained of the peace sign lay face down on the floor, torn and wrinkled along with everything it had once represented.
As he lay awake later that night, his father’s words from all those months ago echoed in his mind:
“I’ll have you know it’s noble to serve your country. It’s brave.”
And all Thomas was sure of when he finally drifted off to sleep was that bravery had never been his strongsuit.