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No Registration: Stop the Draft Before It Stops You!!

By John Lindquist

When Reagan was running for the presidency, he was against registration for the draft, but then again he was for a balanced budget. Not a man to be held to campaign promises, Reagan and his administration have moved ahead on registration and is now planning prosecution of non-registrants.

The Administration is talking about law, defense and the Russian threat, but all this is getting a little old. Since when have draftees fought the Russians? America did invade the Soviet Union after World War I but that was 60 years ago,

Quite simply, registration (and the draft) is a way to get the U.S. involved in wars like Vietnam without really consulting the American people.Draftees can fill the ranks of the infantry as in 'Nam without calling up the Reserves of National Guard, or moving units out of Korea or Germany. They provide the President with a means of escalation (again as in Vietnam) of placing troops in the Mid-East or Central America.

Reagan keeps telling us to trust him.He won't start a draft or get us into El Salvador. He just wants to show the Russians that we're serious. Well, recent history hasn't exactly made us convinced of the trust-worthiness of American presidents, and the way that Ronnie has dealt with campaign promises doesn't hold out much hope for an improvement in that sorry record.

"Ronald Reagan, he's not good, Send him back to Hollywood. If he'd been in Nam back then, He'd never made it home again. Sound off, 1,2...."

On Saturday, March 6th, a large anti-draft rally was held at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. VVAW contributed one of the four speakers, and 150 people attended.We talked about how vets were fooled into enlisting for Vietnam and that people this time around were less naïve. Already 900 thousand people have resisted registration, three times higher than during the Vietnam War.

We talked about how serious the threat of the draft is. In papers given us by active duty contacts, we were told of an exercise for March 20, 1982 to test draft call-up. Called "Exercise Grand Payload." One Thousand USAR personnel would be "called up" and processed through Armed Forces Entrance Enlistment Stations. Selective Service, the Army Reserve and the Military Enlistment Command are doing this out of boredom; they are playing for keeps.

John Lindquist
VVAW National Office