How to Be Patriotic and Live With Yourself

SINCE the Johnson Administration obviously depends on the draft for the manpower requirements of its war in Vietnam, the draft is a crucial link in the chain of mobilization which stretches from the creation and direction of public support to actual warfare. Thus, both for the present war and in general, it is a burning issue for those concerned with social problems.

The draft has always been recognized as vital in providing needed military manpower, but too little attention has been paid to its effectiveness as a means of controlling public opinion and behavior. The present war in Vietnam provides an example of the dangers of both these functions, for the draft’s universally applicable and very narrow definitions of what constitutes national service are proving one of the Administration’s best instruments for maintaining the strength of its position. We have already seen the ugly spectacle of draft boards reclassifying for immediate or threatened induction college students who have publicly criticized the Administration’s foreign policy and questioned the propriety of contributing to the war effort in Vietnam. (For example, of twentyeight University of Michigan undergraduates who sat-in at the Ann Arbor Selective Service Board on October 15, in protest against the war in Vietnam, seven were notified within thirty days that their deferred draft status had been changed to I-A.)

Essentially it is a system of forced labor: everyone must either serve (whether in the military, in national defense industries, or in school) or admit to being unfit or impoverished. The dissenter, therefore, finds himself written out of the category of loyal Americans; and the passive majority is regimented toward a policy to which far too little moral or practical consideration has been given.

Those who go into the Armed Forces spend at least two years in which they experience communal problem-solving only when bludgeoning their adversaries. The man who spends four years in one of our universities, or is exempted for some other reason, misses this experience, and has few alternative opportunities for organized communal social work. Since the draft hangs over everyone’s head in some form, these general conditions apply for a whole age group. Some are militarized and dehumanized and then returned to civilian life, where their isolation from meaningful social problemsolving is reinforced. Those who avoid the draft have few compelling reasons to give militarism much thought.

At this point, the great paradox in the whole situation becomes evident: the regimentations of the draft are not universal but are discriminatory with respect to various social divisions. Obviously there is unfairness in many of the physical, marital, and financial-hardship exemptions. More significant, however, are the social class inequities: most of those whose parents can afford to send them through four years of college are, at least for now, having fun, thinking very little about the personal or social implications of the war, and preparing for very lucrative careers which their less wealthy peers will not enjoy or have had interrupted because of the draft. Servicemen could easily justify their resentment of the safety and freedom of students even if students were not the backbone of the war opposition (as well as a source for the most vocal domestic support o that war).

Consider the class composition of combat casualties. Taking only the forces stationed overseas, at most 20 percent of these actually see combat. To a great extent, these are the men whose education and skills (a function, largely, of social class) are inadequate to the requirements of noncombat support roles. Yet these units absorb all the casualties — the figure was as high as 90 percent in the Korean War. The poor get children, and the children get shot at.

These consequences, among others, are important to the thinking of the major student groups opposing the war in Vietnam. Since the war is a very immediate crisis, there is a tendency to view the draft issue largely instrumentally: as a powerful potential opening through which to create and crystallize an opposition movement. Specifically, students like myself want to ask those people whom the draft affects — the young men, their wives, their parents — whether they think it is right that they are being manipulated in this way to fight this war.

HOWEVER, none of these immediate and instrumental considerations lessen the importance of the draft as a more general social issue. Ideological behavior necessitates an awareness and consistency of both ends and means, and in any case one is somewhat obliged to outline or imply alternatives to what one is criticizing. Idealistically, I can conceive of no viable solution to the war/conscription problem other than rejecting the use of armed force as a means of prosecuting national policies and then dismantling the military establishment. For the foreseeable future, however, the question is whether there is any structure which can satisfy both military needs and the social-moral issues implicit in the raising of armies.

One widely discussed alternative is the army of mercenaries.

But such a system involves some serious social dangers. Where the draft at some point forces all men to deal with the implications of war on an immediate basis, an army of mercenaries means that the great majority of men will never have to consider whether they want to risk death or want to kill in a given war. To most, the decision will be largely economic or perversely psychological (searching for a “masculine” occupation). If one dislikes placing his life in jeopardy or thinks there are better career opportunities elsewhere, one need not feel guilty about not joining: “It’s a free country, and there’s no reason why I have to involve myself with this particular aspect of its policies”; “After all, if others are concerned about the issue of war, let them do the fighting and make the decisions.” The nation’s ability to wage a war depends less and less on its ability to justify that war and more and more on its ability to pay.

Second, given the types of men who will enlist, their motives, and the requisites of military efficiency, there will very quickly develop a much different kind of army from what we now know. Relevant statistics indicate that re-enlistments are significantly higher among enlistees than among draftees, especially among those men who have already served two stretches. All these men become the career soldiers; encouraged by the military (in order to reduce turnover costs), they voluntarily separate themselves from civilian life. But to build an army more and more out of the men who want to be in uniform and who will stay is to increase the effective separation of the military from civilian control. Fewer men, and men of a more consistent nature, pass through the military, which means that strains on military organization and military indoctrination are considerably reduced; fewer men emerge from the military to inform civilians of what it means to kill or of what the enemy is really like. The armed forces become more self-contained, more capable of existing without paying homage to political considerations. While it is hard to foresee a military takeover in this country, it is relatively easy to predict more ruthless, more single-minded, and more politically powerful armed forces built around career soldiers.

Third, a mercenary army would effectively discriminate along class lines even more than the draft does: whatever level salaries might reach, they could not compete with what middleand upper-class men, especially those with degrees, might expect in civilian occupations. While the lower classes would bear the burden both of casualties and of changes in social attitudes, the middle and upper classes would grow increasingly unconcerned.

If there is to be a solution to the inequities and social damage of the draft, it must lie in a structure combining egalitarianism with the right to choose how to serve one’s country (if at all), maximum contact with the implications of war, avenues for significant social experiences, acceptance of nonmilitary alternatives, and civilian control.

One scheme which approximates this description would establish a national service requirement for all males (perhaps females as well), with exemptions only for extreme physical handicaps and extreme financial importance to the support of elders. Besides the Armed Forces, one could choose from numerous nonmilitary offerings for fulfilling one’s obligation. There could be a few relatively large, government-run programs such as the Peace Corps, VISTA, Project Head Start, social work, and teaching in slum schools, plus many smaller, autonomous programs such as community organizing, freedom schools, voter registration, and various charitysupported agencies. The plan which Students for a Democratic Society has advanced — that thousands of youth go to Vietnam to build where the Armed Forces are burning — is a good example of the constructive alternatives to military service.

What would happen with such a structure is that there would finally be much more choice and much more difference of opinion and action in regard to what constitutes genuine patriotism, and this can only be healthy for American society.