Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2023

- Davíd Morales

 There is no doubt that teachers are key participants in the struggle against militarism in schools and society. Over the years, counter-recruitment efforts have benefited from teachers who sympathize with our mission to provide young people with an alternative point of view about military enlistment so that they can make an educated decision about their future. Teachers have invited our organization, Project YANO (Youth And Non-Military Opportunities), to their middle and high school classrooms to present students with facts about the realities of military life and war. They have helped mobilize students to speak out against predatory military recruitment practices at school sites and, thus, have played a role in successful campaigns for policies that have removed JROTC shooting ranges from campuses, restricted methods recruiters use to target students, and curbed the involuntary enrollment of students in JROTC.

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2023

— Lauren Reyna Morales

[Note: Fort Hood was built in 1942 near the town of Killeen, Texas. The infamous post was named after Confederate General John Bell Hood and is the third largest military base in the United States. On May 23rd, 2023, Fort Hood was renamed Fort Cavazos after Gen. Richard E. Cavazos, the Army’s first Hispanic four-star general. This article will use the name Fort Hood when describing the various incidents that occurred at this Army base.]

Private Ana Basaldua Ruiz of Long Beach, California, was found dead at Fort Hood on March 13, 2023. Basaldua was 20 years old and had served the 15 months prior to her death as a combat engineer with the 1st Cavalry Division. She joined the Army in 2021. Basaldua’s family insists that in the weeks leading up to her death, their daughter had confided in them that she was the victim of inappropriate sexual behavior. Alejandra Ruiz Zarco, Basaldua’s mother, told Telemundo News “her daughter had told her . . . that an Army superior was ‘harassing her’ and that she was the target of repeated sexual advances on the base” (The New York Times).

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From Draft NOtices, July-September 2023

— Rick Jahnkow

A bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate that, if passed, would impose significant new restrictions on the military’s high school Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) program.

 The idea for the legislation (S.B. 1966) gained traction following the publication of several exposés of JROTC that appeared in The New York Times, beginning in July 2022.

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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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