Beating General Marsbars

While many Americans are questioning the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam in word and print, many others--in the generation subject to the draft--are going considerably further. Paralleling the rise in U.S. manpower in Viet Nam, draft-counseling and resistance centers are springing up around the country, while longestablished, religion-oriented agencies are swamped with requests for advice on conscientious objection.

In Chicago and New York, pickets rise with the dawn to hand out how-to-beat-the-draft material to young men showing up for their Army physicals.

In the nation's capital, an underground newspaper, the Washington Free Press, runs a biweekly agony column for the man who would avoid military service; with a mock bow to Lieut. General Lewis Hershey, director of Selective Service, the column is titled: "Dear General Marsbars--Advice to the Draft Resister." All in all, there are more than 100 counseling centers around the country. Milwaukee peace workers last month saw nothing at all odd in setting up a draft-guidance stand at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis--with a fudge salesman on one side and a kew-pie-doll barker on the other.

The Immediate Aim. Ranging all the way from the Bible-steeped National Service Board for Religious Objectors to such openly political outfits as Boston's Draft Resistance Group and Chicago's CADRE, the draft-counseling movement shares widely differing long-range goals. But the immediate aim of all is much the same: to aid the man who does not want to fight. Traditionally, the avenue of escape has been conscientious objection.

Until a few years ago, the C.O. in good standing had to belong to one of the recognized religious sects--notably the Friends, Mennonites or Church of the Brethren--that are totally opposed to war. However, recent Supreme Court rulings have opened the door to a broader interpretation of religious training and belief. "You can be a conscientious objector today," claims Frank Speltz, 25, a Washington antidraft counselor, "with little semblance of religious training."

Though it is the first exit explored by many draft-eligible men, conscientious objection is often the last, desperate choice. For even if he succeeds in becoming a C.O., a man must perform two years of alternative service, usually as a civilian hospital orderly or Army medic. Many unarmed C.O.s have, in fact, served--and died--valiantly as medics. "There are easier ways to beat the draft," laconically notes Harold Sherk, 64, a Mennonite preacher who heads the National Service Board.

Abandoning the Fight. Many of the nonreligious groups, which see in draft resistance a means of opposing the war, are openly in business to find the easier ways. They look for legitimate deferments a man might have but not be aware of, sometimes aid him in discovering a "trick knee," "asthmatic condition" or "homosexual tendencies" that he might never have known existed.

Now and again they help men, particularly Negroes, vanish in the city slums. While perhaps 1,000 to 1,500 young Americans have emigrated to Canada to escape service, none of the draft-beating agencies advocate leaving the country. For one thing, the refugee from conscription runs the risk of losing his citizenship. "Besides," says Mark Zuckerman, secretary of the Los Angeles branch of Viet Nam Summer, "going to Canada is abandoning the fight."

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