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The Draft: Stop It, Before It Stops YOU!

By VVAW

The prospect of young men (and possibly women) being forced to register for the draft is once again real. And registration is only a call-up from induction. What was, not long ago, just a bad memory of the bleak prospect for a teenager's future is now alive and well in Congress. More than six bills are being put forward to allow the government for force men to perform various kinds of "national service."

These draft bills offer some insight into the thinking of the military and government in preparing for a future war. Among the recent bills are:

H.R. 1901: Representative Montgomery calls for registration for service at the age of 18 and the induction of up to 200,000 men into the reserves annually.

H.R. 2078: Representative Wilson calls for the active induction of men into the military service.

H.R. 2500: Representative Nichols calls for national registration to begin on January 1, 1981, and places the selective service system under the Department of Defense.

H.R. 23: Representative Bennett would amend the privacy act to allow the selective service system to have access to "age and address information in the records of any school, and agency of the U.S. or any agency or political subdivision of any state for the purpose of registration." In other words, automatic registration by composter has become a possibility. In addition to active duty, this bill would require 3 years active service in the reserves.

S. 109: Senators Byrd and Nunn require registration of "men only" 180 days after its enactment.

H.R. 2206: This bill, one of the most publicized, was put forward by Representative Paul McCloskey and is probably the most comprehensive and dangerous in Congress. Its sections include:

• It is the "obligation of each citizen of the United States to perform some service to his country."
• Provides for conscientious objection to service in peace time but only conscientious objection to "ALL WAR" in war time. (What happens to a C.O. after war id declared is up to the generals, we suppose.)
• Eliminates the whole concept of Civilian Review Boards.
• Sets up a system of "counseling" that requires 17-year olds to be advised by counselors who may be reservist military recruiters.
• Provides that induction will precede the establishment of hardship or dependency claims or psychiatric or medical problems.
• Allows for persons who have completed civilian service in peace time to be drafted in case of war.
• Allows for no benefits for alternative service while reinstituting the GI Bill for military service volunteers.

These and more draft registration bills are already in front of Congress; they're now being sifted through as the politicians try to come up with some way to make the prospects of a future war more palatable to the American public. At the same time they have to proceed with some kind of program to beef up the "all-voluntary" military which is failing badly.

The end of the old draft and the inability of the military to attract sufficient recruits are a direct result of the U.S. involvement in Indochina. During the Vietnam War these were mass protests against induction, the burning of draft cards as a symbol of that system, and active resistance against the military. The draft, like the Vietnam War, became too hot for the politicians to handle and, with the U.S. pullout from Indochina; President Ford also ended military induction and registration. A general understanding that getting killed for Texaco is an unjust war against the Vietnamese people developed. That same understanding continues today as people see no reason to die for Exxon by taking oil wells in the Middle East or to protect Somoza in Nicaragua. What the Congress and the military like to explain as "obligation to country" means much more than some abstract patriotism. It is intrinsically tied up with who runs this country and who profits from its wars.

While the powers that be say defend. The country and try to conjure up a vision of citizens protecting their families from a rampaging horde of barbarians raping and pillaging, the reality is far different. Some working stiff's son having his head blown off so that Exxon can increase its profits isn't brought up. Neither is the fact that we are all being pillaged right here in the U.S. by a bunch of rich S.O.B.s who live off our sweat and blood. A look at oil company profits or the casualty rate of industrial accidents will prove this!

The question of the draft or military service always has, at its very heart, a couple of other questions: who profits from a war—who benefits from the pain and the crippling and the death which are all part of war. Although there was a draft in the Second World War, who would argue that the War was not in the interest of the great majority of people of the world. Americans responded by incredibly high rates of enlistment—there were even the cases of people faking medical records in order to get in, not the reverse as many of us remember from Vietnam. But what went on back in the early 1940's is not what's happening today or what happened during the Indochina War.

As veterans of that war many of us having being drafted into it, we see an obligation to join with the anti-draft movement. This is despite the fact that our own chances of being drafted again are slight. As VVAW said during anti-draft demonstrations this summer, "We were used in the Vietnam war; our blood went to grease the wheels of corporate profit-making machines and our bodies went to prop up a system designed for the benefit of the rich. We vow not to allow our brothers and our children to be used in the same way we were!"