From Draft NOtices, January-March 2007
The following account is from the mother of a young man who joined the Marines in 2006 and quickly got a rude awakening.
Christopher is home now. He got an early separation for failure to adapt to military life. I am so proud of him for standing up for what he believed and for his courage to recognize his mistake quickly. His experience is pretty interesting. I am trying to get him to write it down but right now he is just enjoying being home and in the throes of looking for a job. While I can’t do his story justice, I will share some things he told me that I found to be particularly disturbing.
Chris said it didn’t take long for him to know he was in the wrong place. He is a serious history buff and has been watching the History Channel since he was in elementary school. A few days into boot camp he attended a history class. The instructor asked the platoon, “How many of you in here hate history?” The entire platoon — with the exception of two, my son and another young man — raised their hands. “That’s probably because you were taught history by some liberal hippie. Here is the real story.” Chris said what followed was a one-sided view of history that could only be defined as propaganda. The scary part was that many of these young Marines bought into this view of history that included skewed numbers of battle casualties — e.g., we killed 4,000 and only lost four of our guys.
Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)
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Structured Cruelty: Learning to Be a Lean, Mean Killing Machine
From Draft NOtices, October-December 2006
—Martin Smith
I will never forget standing in formation after the end of our final “hump,” Marine-speak for a forced march, at the end of the Crucible in March, 1997. The Crucible is the final challenge during Marine Corps boot camp and is a two-and-a-half-day, physically exhausting exercise in which sleep deprivation, scarce food, and a series of obstacles test teamwork and toughness. The formidable nine-mile stretch ended with our ascent up the “Grim Reaper,” a small mountain in the hilly terrain of Camp Pendleton, California. As we stood at attention, the commanding officer made his way through our lines, inspecting his troops and giving each of us an eagle, globe and anchor pin, the mark of our final transition from recruit to Marine. But what I recall most was not the pain and exhaustion that filled every ounce of my trembling body, but the sounds that surrounded me as I stood at attention with eyes forward.
Mixed within the repetitive refrains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” belting from a massive sound system, were the soft and gentle sobs emanating from numerous newborn Marines. Their cries stood in stark contrast to the so-called “warrior spirit” we had earned and now came to epitomize. While some may claim that these unmanly responses resulted from a patriotic emotional fit or even out of a sense of pride in being called “Marine” for the very first time, I know that for many the moisture streaming down our cheeks represented something much more anguished and heartrending.
From Draft NOtices, October-December 2006
—Rick Jahnkow
Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed Assembly Bill 1778, legislation that would have required California high schools to redesign their student emergency cards to help parents and students opt out when school lists are given to military recruiters (see the July-September Draft NOtices).
The reasons Schwarzenegger gave for not signing the bill were in a veto message to the legislature:
State and federal law already require school districts to notify parents of the types of student information that they release to the public. The notice must include an explanation of a parent’s right to request that the information not be disclosed without prior written consent and the method and timeline for making such a request. Ultimately, I believe that schools should maintain the flexibility to develop their own procedures to ensure compliance with state and federal laws without the state dictating how procedures are implemented.
Schwarzenegger’s veto message suggests that he was misinformed about at least one aspect of the existing federal law on opt-out. Contrary to his assertion, the language of the existing law does not require schools to give a specific method or timeline for students and parents to exercise their right to opt out. The lack of such guidelines is one of the reasons why the bill was introduced by Assemblyperson Sally Lieber.
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:
