Many fathers of young children did not have to get drafted to Nam.. . Cheney, who was born in 1941, received a series of draft deferments as a student, a husband, and a father during the Vietnam era. By the time the draft became most intense at the end of the 1960s, he was too old to be called. At the time of his confirmation hearings as secretary of defense in 1989, Cheney reportedly said he had complied with all the rules, and would have been happy to serve if called, but, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."