evidence: In addition to his civil rights activism during the 1960s and 1970s,[26] Sanders was active in several peace and antiwar movements while attending the University of Chicago, becoming a member of the Student Peace Union. He applied for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War; his application was eventually turned down, by which point he was too old to be drafted. Although he opposed the war, Sanders never criticized those who fought in it and has strongly supported veterans' benefits throughout his political career.[34][35] He also was briefly an organizer with the United Packinghouse Workers of America while in Chicago.[23] He also worked on the reelection campaign of Leon Despres, a prominent Chicago alderman who opposed then-mayor Richard J. Daley's Democratic Party machine. Sanders said that he spent much of his student years reading history, sociology, psychology, and the works of political authors, from Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John Dewey, Karl Marx, and Erich Fromm—"reading everything except what I was supposed to read for class the next day."[2][36] [...] - ^ Bradner, Eric (April 30, 2015). "Sanders doesn't want billionaires' backing". CNN. Archived from the original on October 16, 2020. Retrieved May 4, 2015.