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VVAW Forum: War And The Draft

By NY/NJ VVAW

On May 6, New York/New Jersey VVAW held a forum on war and the draft. About 80 people attended including students from 15 different high schools. The forum marked the beginning of our campaign to counter the Board of Education's Jr ROTC program in the New York City schools. Our main aim is to educate students about realities of war and military recruitment. We were helped in building for the forum by the Coalition Against Militarism in Public Schools (CAMPS) who leafletted many of the city's high schools.

A slide show "Choice or Chance" (about avoiding military recruitment) and a film, "Only the Beginning" (graphically depicting the horror of the Vietnam War) were shown. Peter Mahoney of VVAW gave a brief history of the Vietnam War and compared it to the situation in El Salvador, waning the students that they could be used as cannon fodder if the Reagan administration starts a war there.

Then a panel of veterans—Clarence Fitch, Jim Duffy, and Danny Friedman of VVAW, and "Cowboy" Bass of the Black Veterans for Social Justice explained about their military recruitment, experiences in Vietnam and what happened afterwards. Clarence related how he was on his first patrol when he saw "48 guys killed in about a minute and a half... All I could think of was I had 12 months to go."

Jim related how he was trained as a communications specialist but wound up "as a door gunner in a chopper.... What I learned was not a trade but a thousand and one ways to get the shaft." Despite military career and training recruitment ads, Jim said in reference to computer training, "You've got about as much experience as a guy who spent $5,000 learning how to play PacMan."

Clarence and Cowboy talked about racial strife, saying that a disproportionate number of Blacks were in the line companies. Clarence said, "We carried a larger role in the fighting and dying. I wish I could've sat in an audience like this before I went."

Danny, a veterans counselor, stated that he sees many veterans who say, "My recruiter promised...." If you fail a test or foul up in training, he said it "means they can make you anything they want. If you want out they'll let you sign a piece of paper but it'll follow you the rest of your life," referring to the less-than-honorable discharges.

We in VVAW look at the situation on El Salvador and realize that young people joining the military today may well be ordered to fight in a war similar to the one we were forced to fight in Vietnam, and that worries us. We don't want young people to have to go through what we did.

—NY/NJ VVAW