#Anyone else's view of the Vietnam War (within fiction) shaped by uh... this may be embarrassing to admit...

[bittersweet-jack-of-no-trades]

If I've read my Vietnam War Conscription lottery tables right, then the Stan twins (if born in 1950) would've been drafted. June 15th is lottery #180 and they pulled up to #195... I think that's how it worked. Ford obviously got an academic deferment for being in university (his hands may have medically disqualified him anyway); equally obviously, Stan would've dodged the draft. The image of the military trying to chase him down is an entertaining one, as well as him integrating himself into an anti-war group to try and claim religious objection, and then finding out he does actually have a genuine ethical objection to shipping barely-adult men off to a losing war.

There is, of course, the idea of Stan, being at rock bottom, going "ah, what the heck, what's the worst that happens--- I die?" and shipping himself off to basic.

Vietnam War Vet Stan showing to Ford's door. "You think you have it bad? I fought a literal war!" Veteran Stan trying to build the portal while also dealing with the aftermath of his service. The kids meeting a Stan who is considerably more subdued, who hates loud noises, who won't really talk about what happened overseas so many decades ago.