Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2014

Testimonies recount unethical health care practices, command disregard of medical advice, and violations of base policy.

— Rena Guay and Kathleen Gilberd
    

This Memorial Day, a national group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their supporters marked the solemn holiday by exposing unethical healthcare practices at the largest Army post in the country, Fort Hood. Commanders with no medical training deploying ill and injured soldiers against doctors’ recommendations are among the shocking discoveries revealed in the groundbreaking report, Operation Recovery: Fort Hood Soldiers and Veterans Testify on the Right to Heal (also referred to as the Fort Hood Testimony Report).

The report is the product of months of investigation and compilation by its authors: Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Under the Hood Café and Resource Center, and Civilian Soldier Alliance. The National Lawyers Guild’s Military Law Task Force contributed legal support, analysis of regulations, and assistance in developing recommendations.

The report culminates three years of sustained outreach in the Fort Hood community, and contains in-depth testimony from 31 Ford Hood soldiers, veterans and family members. Additionally, it includes a series of findings and recommendations for the Fort Hood command and the Department of Defense. This report provides a snapshot in time of a military base at the height of the deployment cycle and during the recent drawdown, and it exposes the challenges that servicemembers face in a military that has been at war for more than a decade. While the report focuses on Fort Hood, it reflects problems endemic to the Army as a whole as well as to the other branches of the military.

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2014


LETTERS NEEDED!
    

After failing five previous times, the Selective Service System is again asking the California state legislature to pass a bill linking Selective Service registration to California drivers’ licenses. California’s large population has one of the lowest SS registration compliance rates in the country, which could complicate any future attempt to resort to forced military service.

Proposed by Assembly member Rocky Chávez (R-Oceanside), Assembly Bill 2201 seeks to use DMV records to automatically register males with Selective Service when they apply for a license or license renewal (it does not include DMV-issued ID cards). The bill passed the Assembly Committee on Transportation on APRIL 21. As of April 21 it was waiting to be given a hearing by the appropriations committee. If it survives that committee, it would require an assembly floor vote before going through a similar committee process in the state senate.

The last time this proposal was introduced in California (SB 251 in 2011), an amended version was approved by the transportation committee and then, like all the others, allowed to die when it was held in suspension by the appropriations committee.

ACTION CALIFORNIANS CAN TAKE: As of this update (April 21), the bill was waiting for its hearing in the Assembly appropriations committee.  Letters to that committee are needed. We’ve included a set of talking points below to consider when writing to legislators. NOTE: Send faxes, if possible, since mail is now slowed by capitol security checks. Write to:

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From Draft NOtices, April-June 2014

— Libby Frank
    

Ames Middle School for 7th and 8th grade students is located in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. It’s a predominantly Latino working-class community. The school was built in 1998 after extensive pressure from the community to relieve overcrowding.

Sometime in 2012 Roberto Maldonado, the alderman for the ward that includes Ames, visited the school as principal for a day. Apparently the students were a bit rowdy (they are 7th and 8th graders, after all). He claims they were flashing gang signs, so he decided that the school should be turned into a military academy.

For months there was some back and forth on this proposal, but on December 18, 2013, the school board (which is appointed by the mayor, by the way) voted 5 to 2 in favor of turning Ames into a Marine academy. In the meantime the Ames community (teachers, parents, students, residents) conducted several surveys among the parents and students that showed that the community overwhelmingly wanted to keep Ames a neighborhood school. Undaunted by the school board’s decision, the community launched a petition drive to get a referendum on the spring ballot. The question presented to voters was: “Should Ames Middle School (1920 North Hamlin Ave) be maintained as a neighborhood school, rather than being converted into a military school?”

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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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