Gary Eugene Rader (January 14, 1944 – November 1973) was an American Army Reservist known for burning his draft card in protest of the Vietnam War, while wearing his U.S. Army Special Forces uniform. Afterward, he engaged in anti-war activism. Background Upon turning 18, Rader registered for the draft, and received his draft card from the Selective Service System. He entered Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, as an undergraduate student of political science. His status as a college student deferred his being drafted into the military. Upon leaving college, in mid-1965 he was re-classified as 1A: available for unrestricted military duty. He signed up for the U.S. Army Reserve, then trained for the Army Special Forces, commonly known as the Green Berets. Of this elite formation, Rader said, "I wanted to see what the best was like." Reading Ramparts magazine in February 1966, he was struck by an article, "The whole thing was a lie!", from ex-Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan who turned down a field commission to the rank of captain and left the Army. Duncan wrote that a majority of South Vietnamese citizens were in favor of North Vietnamese politics, or against Saigon politics, or both. After realizing this, Duncan said he "had to accept also that the position, 'We are in Vietnam because we are in sympathy with the aspirations and desires of the Vietnamese people,' was a lie." Duncan did not think the U.S. should be a part of Vietnam's political disputes, and he opined that "anti-communism is a lousy substitute for democracy." He wrote that the U.S. should get out of Vietnam and let them decide their own fate, even though he felt that a united Vietnam would not be better off "under Ho's brand of communism." Rader went on active duty in September 1966 and was sent to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of the regular Army Special Forces. Rader said that he spoke to Green Beret soldiers returning from Vietnam and that they reported similar experiences to Duncan's. The responses these soldiers gave were ones Rader classified as belonging primarily to two groups: one group saying they were following orders and the other group saying the Vietnamese did not know what was best for them, that they needed to be "trained". A much smaller group said that the war was wrong and that they would refuse to go back. Rader