Word: draft
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...draft board does not like me Mrs.-, the fifty-five-year-old secretary and dottering mainstay of the board, continually answers my snide inquiries and diatribes with short formal notes on mimeographed forms. I don't even have the satisfaction that they take my hate notes seriously. They claim they simply administer the system, following directives from Washington. But they are humorless, and totally without compassion...
...think my draft board likes anyone. I have learned not to take this personally. After all, they are fucking around with my life. But they are fucking around with everyone else's too. I bet they enjoy fucking around. That is why the lottery is driving them mad. Ever since the drawing after Thanksgiving, confusing and conflicting reports have come from all sectors: the Pentagon and the draft boards have been at continual odds in their projection of who will be the "winners." Many articles have been written decrying the lottery, holding it up as a sham...
...draft has been a major cause of dissent in this country and its repeal may weaken this dissent. This danger does not justify a retention of the draft. But repealing the draft will not end the militarism out of which the draft arose, and the Report of the President's Commission for an Effective All-Volunteer Armed Force should remind us of that...
Another objection to an all-volunteer army is that it would not be flexible enough to meet our security needs." The commission did recommend the institution of a stand-by draft for cases of emergency, but pointed out that a draft is of little use in a short-run emergency anyway, since it requires six months to a year to train new recruits. In national emergencies like the Berlin crisis and the Korean war, it was the Reserves who allowed in immediate expansion of the active military. the commission noted...
...draft's usefulness as a mechanism for gradually expanding the military is one of its chief dangers. Under present draft law, the President is able to establish draft quotas by executive order. Without permission from Congress. Presidents Johnson and Nixon were able to enlarge the military by almost one million men. The Gates Commission recommended that activation of the proposed stand-by draft be made possible only with Congressional approval. This restriction would enable Congress and the public to debate any large-scale expansion of the military, and therefore, any decision to engage the country in a large-scale undeclared...