As you say, we don't know for sure what happened then and I can't say I remember enough about the incident to discuss it intelligently. On the other hand, Vietnam was it's own beast and there were a lot of people who did everything they could to get out of going. I don't see anything different between him not going really and Bush using his contacts to get into the national guard so he wouldn't be deployed. Just different avenues that were available if one was poor or if one was rich. In fact, I work for someone who's student deferrment got pulled for his anti-war activism during that time. Do you have the same objections to Cheney's five deferrments, though? They didn't seem to bother anyone during the campaign and were barely discussed except by folk who wouldn't have voted for Bush/Cheney in any event.