Organize to Protect Your Kids from the Draft- Here's How

[chlamor]

The links I posted within the article are outstanding references for us all to use as community organizing tools. The pdf files are short and can be copied for distribution. Let's not wait.


The Time to Oppose the Draft Is Now

by Kevin B. Zeese

In February, the Army missed its recruiting goal for the first time in nearly five years. The Army missed its March goal by 32 percent while the need for soldiers is on the rise. The United States Armed Services have announced a new plan to solve their recruiting problems – convincing parents to get their children to enlist. At the same time, parents are organizing to ensure the military draft does not return. The battle lines for the bodies of America's youth are beginning to take shape.

<snip>

So parents are figuring out what they can do to protect their kids from dishonest recruiters and Army propaganda as well as organizing to prevent a return of the military draft. There is a lot people can do to protect their kids. In a recent interview, J.E. McNeil of The Center on Conscience & War (CCW) told me that when youth register for the selective service, they should:
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Find a post office for their registration that has an accessible photocopier.
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Print in legible black ink on the face of the registration card in the center (not on the edges): "I am a conscientious objector."
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Make a photocopy of their registration form for their own records before they submit it to the postal clerk for date stamp and initials.
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Prepare a statement of their beliefs and get it on file with their church or other religious body, CCW, or other counseling agency. Such a statement could be helpful in getting the government to recognize their CO beliefs.

More details can be found here http://www.nisbco.org/ and here: http://www.nisbco.org/draft/info.htm

<snip>

As pressure continues to mount, it will be more important than ever for parents to be organized to protect their kids. The time to act is now, before the draft steamroll begins.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/zeese.php?articleid=5529

[babylonsister]

1. Thanks, Chlamor. This info will come in handy

to every last person on my e-mail list w/draft-age kids.

[bluestateguy]

2. reply

The people who will have a problem here will be the people who are not pacifists, but oppose this war, and the doctrine of preemptive war. What if a draft board asks some kid if he would have served in WWII, and he says yes, but that his opposition is to offensive, preemptive wars only? Somehow, I don't think that is going to fly.

[rzemanfl]

3. During Viet Nam draft boards in some communities just gave

C.O. status to anyone who asked for it, but ordered them to report for alternative service almost immediately. A friend of mine walked into his draft board in Madison, Wisconsin and said he was a C.O., they said "fine," yanked him out of law school and put him to work as an orderly in a hospital in Chippewa Falls. He spent two years as a hospital orderly. In the meantime another friend who had applied for Naval aviation before law school and was accepted at the end of the first semester told the the Navy he didn't want to fly anymore one year into flight training, got an honorable discharge, a draft card that said he had served his military duty and the GI Bill for the balance of Law School. The times sure were fair then...

[babylonsister]

5. Not necessarily. Look at Bush's (non) record-

has he ever had to account for anything?

[rzemanfl]

6. Were you responding to my post or the original one? n/t

[Sapphire Blue]

4. CO info & resources

Peace-Out: http://www.peace-out.com/