Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, July-August 2000


-Ray Wolf

It has been over one year since David Sanes was killed by an errant U.S. Navy bomb on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques (see Draft NOtices, July/August, 1999). The killing brought to a head decades of frustration and resentment from the residents of Vieques and other Puerto Ricans throughout the islands and the mainland United States. Tired of being treated like a colony, tired of being exposed to toxic metals and chemicals, tired of having their lives endangered by stray ordnance, and tired of being treated as second class human beings, the people of Vieques, and Puerto Rico as a whole, united in an effort to force the U.S. Navy from their homeland. For a moment, there seemed to be a faint glimmer of hope for success. President Clinton ordered the suspension of military operations on the island while a study was conducted to determine if the Navy needs to continue operations on Vieques. Hopes were high. But it was not to be. The U.S. Navy resumed bombing operations with "inert" weapons on June 24, 2000.

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From Draft NOtices, July-August 2000


Orange Glen H.S. backs down on its counter-recruitment ad ban after getting letter from COMD's attorney.


OGHS School AD Click Ad to EnlargeWith only one issue of the student newspaper left in the school year, the Orange Glen High School administration apparently decided it could not defend an earlier decision to reject a counter-recruitment ad submitted by COMD (see May-June 2000 issue of Draft NOtices).

The ad, sponsored by Orange Glen alumni Gary Ghirardi and Michael Boone, was submitted to the school newspaper staff in February. It was similar in theme to dozens of other ads COMD had placed in high school papers over the last 18 years. In the center was a photo of an injured soldier being helped on a battlefield, and above it was the headline: "College on the G.I. Plan." The rest of the text said: "Before you enlist, contact us to find out what military ads and recruiters might not be telling you. We can also give you information about educational and job training alternatives." Rather than allow the students to decide whether to accept this ad, the journalism advisor and school administration intervened and sent COMD a rejection letter. Attached was a copy of a school district policy that prohibits schools from distributing "materials" that promote any particular commercial, religious or political interest. Another part of the policy prohibits "advertisements which are inconsistent with school objectives or do not reasonably relate to the educational purpose of school-sponsored publications."

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From Draft NOtices, May-June 2000


- Glen Milner, Seattle Draft and Military Counseling Center

Four years of involvement with counter-recruiting issues in the Shoreline School District has uncovered a number of sexual harassment cases involving U.S. Army recruiters and female high school students. If not for the close scrutiny recruiters were receiving from activists and the media, it is doubtful the incidents of sexual harassment would have been made public. The question remains — how common is the sexual harassment of female students in our schools by military recruiters?

Shoreline School District has two high schools and is located immediately north of Seattle. The neighborhoods in the district are middle to upper-middle class. Generally, military service is viewed as not the best choice here, but an acceptable choice for some.

In 1995, parents of students at Shorecrest High School asked for equal access for activists with an alternative view to military service. We had discovered that military recruiters had no restrictions on access to students in the district. Recruiters could be seen in the gym after school and uniformed soldiers even instructed some of the class periods, but the schools would not allow leaflets with an opposing view to military service in the career centers. Eventually, the media became interested in our efforts and began carrying articles about military recruitment in public schools. Finally, in June 1997, Shorecrest High School agreed to allow us to display four different leaflets in its career center.

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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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