TWO ALIENS
Levine, Carol
TWO ALIENS Every January when I hear public service announcements warning aliens "You must register," I feel a sharp shadow of anxiety. Not that I—a second generation American—have anything...
...Another plan would house in large cities about 400 COs in a barrack as a sort of "social fire brigade" ready for all kinds of temporary social assignments...
...They dubbed the building the "Hans Iven Caserne" and protested against what they called the "militarization" of alternative service...
...Finally, the card notifying the United States government of my grandmother's whereabouts would be properly filed in the post office of the tiny rural upstate New York community where we lived...
...Alternative service director Iven has ambitious plans for this expected avalanche of COs...
...With the new draft law now in effect, these positions will probably soon be taken...
...But these are elementary human needs...
...tom heneghan (Tom Heneghan, a previous contributor, is a senior analyst in the research department of Radio Free Europe in Munich...
...Each CO would be assigned about 30 persons for whom he would deliver meals, do light housework, and provide occasional companionship...
...I was certain that I would be taken away too, no matter how cleverly my grandmother tried to hide me (and she knew lots of tricks from the Old Country...
...And what is to distinguish the COs from just any other pool of cheap labor...
...We listened to Gabriel Heatter's recital of the good news and the bad news on the radio...
...And so the Republic would be safe from my grandmother and the two of us would be safe from the authorities for another year...
...she would anxiously ask my father again and again...
...The only problem the optimistic Iven foresees is that his office might not be able to handle all the COs it will have...
...The first rumblings have already been heard...
...In late July, 120 COs occupied a barrack in Dortmund where the "social fire brigade" idea is already being tested...
...we cheered Joe Louis on to victory...
...Officials estimate there will be about 50,000 applications for conscientious objector status this year...
...Why we stayed is another...
...We had the biggest American flag in the neighborhood, and the biggest Victory Garden, too...
...It would have been hard to fault us, though, on patriotism...
...You have to wait another two months...
...The nine-year-old teacher and the 60-year-old student worked diligently on reading, writing and the Founding Fathers...
...My grandfather was the chief air raid warden, a job well suited to his natural authoritarianism...
...Demand for these young men has grown so strongly that charity organizations now have about 18,000 positions waiting for COs to fill them...
...But when I was growing up in the early 1940s, those announcements on radio frightened my grandmother who, after 30 years in America, was still an alien...
...The private charities are far less concerned about these things than they should be," Iven says...
...One idea calls for increased individual care for elderly and crippled people who live alone...
...How we all got there—an extended and isolated family of displaced Jews—is a typical Depression story...
...I was not quite sure whether it would be the Cossacks, the Nazis, or the New York state troopers who would bang on our door in the dead of night, but whoever came would surely not spare a little Jewish girl...
...Not that I—a second generation American—have anything to worry about...
...Not yet, Ma," he would reply, patiently at first and then with exasperation...
...But my grandmother never took out her citizenship papers...
...Others have voiced fears that the expected army of low-paid social servants could become the modern-day version of Hitler's "Work Service of the Reich...
...How unattractive do we have to be," he asks half-jokingly, "in order to keep them away...
...She was sure that if she did not register as ordered, she would be speedily sent back to Russia...
...What he seems to overlook is the possibility that an identity crisis could develop among COs once all his plans are rolling...
...Iven has brushed off these criticisms easily so far, but he can expect more and stronger protests as the ranks of the COs swell...
...Although most young men will probably appreciate the value of the proposed services, many will presumably ask why they should be the ones to do them...
...Ven muss ich register...
...we counted down to midscientious objector...
...Why, if there is no prospect of being drafted, are women deferred from service in Iven's Army...
...They're afraid of arousing needs they themselves can hardly satisfy...
...Citizenship was, in her eyes, an honor she could never earn...
...The only protection, I decided, was to help my grandmother become a citizen, and so I organized a series of lessons...
...With the "conscience test" hurdle now removed, theoretically all these men could be channeled into various forms of social service...
...With the question of conscience removed from conscientious objection, what will be so special about CO status...
...Instead of being pictured as lazy and unpatriotic, COs are now seen by many as idealistic young men available for the dirtier part of social work others refuse to do...
Vol. 105 • January 1978 • No. 1
