Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, January - March 2008

— Paula Hoffman
    

Aren’t shooting ranges on high school campuses in complete contradiction to the “zero weapons tolerance” rules? Is JROTC, in reality, a well-planned, back-door recruitment tool that targets vulnerable young people? Do parents and students have a clear understanding of what JROTC is all about? Are students being offered fair and equal educational support by school counselors, administrators and teachers? These are the issues being tackled by a coalition of parents, students, teachers and community organizations in San Diego, California.

The new Marine Corps JROTC program at Mission Bay High School opened in September. During the summer, Principal Cheryl Seelos and strongly pro-military board members pushed for its initiation. MBHS was one of the few schools in San Diego never to have had JROTC. Now, as hundreds of low-income Latino students are bused in daily, the military sees fresh opportunities to brainwash and recruit. Despite passionate speeches by many opponents of JROTC at two summer school board meetings, the final vote was four to one in favor of JROTC, with board member John de Beck casting the only nay vote. Subsequently, picketing and leafleting outside the school during class registration in August was the beginning of outreach efforts to inform students and parents of what was happening.

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From Draft NOtices, January—March 2008

— Kathleen Gilberd
    

The Iraq occupation and war in Afghanistan are taxing the military medical system beyond its limits. As the number of combat-related injuries and illnesses increases, many soldiers report that it is difficult to get medical care. Some are discouraged from going to sick call or flatly (and illegally) refused permission to see doctors, and others are sent away after inadequate examinations by overworked corpsmen or medics. In the field and at many medical facilities, service members may face misdiagnosis, poor treatment, long waits for specialists, inappropriate return to duty before injuries are healed, or months in holding companies awaiting medical discharge or retirement. Many with mental or physical problems receive imaginative administrative discharges instead of medical retirement.

It is difficult to focus on U.S. casualties and the failure of the military medical system when they are overshadowed by criminal occupation-related deaths, injuries, and illness among the population of Iraq. Casualties there are seldom reported in the U.S., and the nature of the occupation makes it difficult to gather accurate figures. Independent medical groups report huge numbers of permanent injuries and long-term mental disorders among children and adults. In addition, Iraq’s medical infrastructure has been devastated by U.S. attacks, after being weakened by years of embargo on medicines and medical equipment.

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From Draft NOtices, October - December 2007


Military Recruitment and the Immigration Debate



—Jorge Mariscal
    

In an obscure memoir of the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, an undocumented Mexican who had enlisted in the U.S. Army with the aid of an unscrupulous recruiter, writes: “I realized that for me to live in the United States, the system was asking me to pay a high price. Now I probably would have to give my life. Was it worth it?”

During the Vietnam War period, citizens from foreign countries in the U.S. military were rare and unknown to the public. Today, although they make up only a small percentage of the overall force, they appear regularly in media stories, Pentagon publicity, and nativist rants about a Mexican invasion.

Non-citizens make up 3-5% of total military personnel. To date, they have received more than 200 medals and awards in the combat zone. More than 100 of them have received posthumous citizenship after making the ultimate sacrifice. The majority of them have roots in Mexico and Latin America.

Is the U.S. military becoming a foreign legion? Not yet, but the strain on active duty, Reserve, and National Guard personnel is becoming unbearable. General David Petraeus’s report to Congress last month — and even recent statements made by Democratic Party presidential candidates — make clear that the occupation of Iraq will last many more years. Fresh bodies will be hard to find, so there is renewed interest in a piece of legislation that could produce a bumper crop of eligible non-citizens for recruiters.

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Ninth CIRCUIT COURT RULING: CONFRONTING MILITARISM BY USING EQUAL ACCESS TO HIGH SCHOOLS

When the military comes to your local high school, you have a legal right to give students an opposing view. This has been the position taken by federal district courts in Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois and two federal appellate courts. The most broadly-worded decision came from a case that COMD took to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the 1980s. Here is the background:

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