Help Your Peace-Loving Child Avoid the Draft

By Helen James
Issue 128, January - February 2005

On the eve of the Gulf War, while I was marching for peace with hundreds of other protestors, I spotted a familiar mop of shiny red hair down low in the crowd. Sure enough, it belonged to my then nine-year-old son, Adam. I hadn’t encouraged him to take up the politics of adulthood, but he and his buddies had convinced another parent to take them to the rally. We joined forces, and I walked and talked with them as they struggled to understand the deeper meaning of that day.

As I stopped to take a photo of the boys with their handmade peace signs, a tired, frail-looking man, covered with war medals and peace buttons, began limping toward me as fast as he could manage. He’d broken ranks with his group, Vietnam Vets Against the War, and had a look on his face I will never forget. He came close and embraced me, then pulled back, stared into my eyes, and said, “If my mother had done that for me, I wouldn’t be like this now.” We shared a moment of silence, then parted with a handshake.

The vet was right—my son was not being raised to be a soldier, and someday Adam might need to show his draft board the photo we’d just taken to prove that fact. While this scenario seemed only remotely possible and a long way off, I reminded myself that some parents start college funds when a child is born. I tucked the photo away.

Adam is now 22. The photo is kept in a cardboard file box, along with a two-inch-thick sheaf of paperwork, clippings, and family history, all documenting how he was raised as a conscientious objector—a “CO.” We kept adding to Adam’s CO file through easier times, even when it seemed completely unnecessary. For a while, a combination of “smart weapons,” smaller wars, high unemployment, long enlistments, the military’s intensive multibillion-dollar recruiting efforts, and claims for educational and job-training benefits created what most considered a permanent solution to providing a shrinking military with ample volunteers.

Then came “the War on Terror.”

Politicians of both parties warn us that this war will last a lifetime. Troops are being commanded to serve more time than they signed up for, and according to some, army recruiting numbers are down. It’s a fact of life—nations reinstate conscription whenever they need soldiers. Most experts agree that opening a second war front means the draft will be back. Women could be forced to serve, and neither Canada nor college will provide refuge as they have in the past. Some politicians are calling for compulsory national service for all young people, 18 through 26—a noble-sounding enterprise that could be a prelude to military conscription.

At the same time, America is teaching children to “Use words, not fists!” Public schools now routinely teach conflict resolution, and quality children’s television encourages kids to “talk it out.” Especially after the tragedy of the shootings at the high school in Littleton, Colorado, children are being raised with the message that violence is not a solution. But will they then be drafted and taught to kill?

This situation could already be creating an internal crisis for some in the military. Who knows how many soldiers may find it difficult to rationalize how they were raised with what they are now being told to do? Many young civilian men are feeling a deeply disturbing inner conflict, and some are turning toward conscientious objection. National CO organizations report increasing numbers of callers asking, for example, how to register for the draft as an objector. (The current advice is to write, in ink, “I am a Conscientious Objector to war in any form” across the middle of the registration form, and then make and keep a copy before turning it in.)

If the draft is reinstated, under existing regulations a young conscript wanting to claim CO status will need to prove that he has a “sincere” objection to all wars. He will have to show what he believes and why, how he came to believe it, and how his actions prove he practices what he believes. His belief, according to the law, must be religious, moral, or ethical, not political or pragmatic. It is unnecessary to prove church attendance, affiliation, or a belief in God.

Even though the law requires objection to all wars, it is not necessary for a CO to know what he might have done in the past or would do in the future. This interpretation of the law protects COs from such hypothetical questions as “What would you have done in 1942?” or “What would you do if someone attacked your family?”