Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, October-December 2014

— Jesus Mendez-Carbajal
    

In the past nine months as Project YANO’s 2013-2014 student intern, I have learned an immense amount of information about U.S. militarism, its far reach, and counter-recruitment. I have been directly impacted on multiple levels. I have grown mentally through the knowledge I have gained and also personally through the interactions and relationships I have built with youth, advisors, teachers, mentors, and Project YANO supporters, volunteers and board members. I have had the pleasure of working with students who look like me, engaging low-income youth of color who have stories and backgrounds similar to my own.

At the time I began the internship, I had accepted and started working as an intern for another local non-profit organization. I am very grateful to both organizations for the opportunities they have provided me and for the personal and professional growth they have facilitated both for me and in me. I am especially grateful for the fact that both were paid internships, which allowed me the freedom to do work that I enjoy, that I am passionate about, and that is not routine -- because, as I experienced first-hand while I worked at Wendy’s, repetitive work is tiresome work.

When I began, I was very excited to intern with YANO but I was also a bit nervous and scared about successfully balancing school, my second internship, and personal life. From YANO, its board members, program coordinator and volunteers, I learned lessons in non-profit organizing, basic mailing operations, and fund appeal letter writing; strengthened my facilitation, time management, and multitasking skills; and acquired an expanded interdisciplinary view of the world.

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From Draft NOtices, October-December 2014

    

Below is an excerpt from a military regulation governing recruiters when they arrange for high schools to give the military’s aptitude test, the ASVAB (emphasis added):

    School and student participation in the STP [Student Testing Program] is voluntary. DOD personnel are prohibited from suggesting to school officials or any other influential individual or group that the test be made mandatory.

USMEPCOM 601-4, Chapter 3, The Student Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) Scheduling and Session, 3-1.(e) Voluntary aspect of the student ASVAB.

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2014

LETTERS NEEDED!

— Rick Jahnkow
    

The California bill that would require male driver’s license applicants to register for a possible future military draft has moved forward in the state legislature.

Introduced by Assembly member Rocky Chavez (R-Oceanside), Assembly Bill 2201 passed the California Assembly on May 27 by a vote of 66-4. It then went to the California Senate, where it passed the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing by a vote of 10-1 on June 24.

AB 2201 is now in the hands of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where it will be given a hearing on August 4. If it is approved by that committee, it will go to the full Senate for a floor vote. It if passes there it will go to the governor’s office for his signature or veto.

When this bill was introduced in 2011, it was held in suspension by the Senate Appropriations Committee until it died at the end of the legislative session. Other earlier versions also were held in appropriations committees until they expired.

If passed, AB 2201 would deem that an individual who is required by federal law to register with the Selective Service System has consented to being registered by completing a driver’s license application or license renewal form. Essentially, the individual would be involuntarily registered with Selective Service by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. There would be no alternative for that person, other than driving without a license or not driving at all.

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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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