David M. Kennedy says his father hid the truth about the reason for not serving in WW I

… “WAR, SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL, has been associated with virility and masculinity,” says David M. Kennedy, Professor of History at the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. “The ultimate test of manhood is armed combat. That’s an old trope that goes back to Homer.”

 Kennedy is 73 years old, and was of a draftable age in the Vietnam era, but was not selected.

“There’s kind of a code amongst people my age. When you meet someone new you quickly see whether you’ve served or not,” says Kennedy of social situations where he’s watched men bond over their military service. “I don’t know the code because I wasn’t there.”

Kennedy’s father was born in 1896 and didn’t serve in either World War I or II. “He said he was too young for the first war and too old for the second war. But it turns out that wasn’t true,” says Kennedy.

It was only when his father turned 80 that Kennedy learned that his father was actually physically unqualified to serve. His selective service system designation, which classified men based on characteristics such as health and whether they enlisted or were drafted, was IV-F; reserved for those with physical defects. He’d had scoliosis.

Kennedy says his father admitted to him during conversations about why he hid the truth. “He would say things like, ‘What are you going to say when your kid asks, Daddy, where were you during the Great War?’”