A BIZARRE WORLD
Colhoun, Jack
A bizarre world In discussing the possible revival of the draft, it is important to consider the military's archaic discharge system and the harshly punitive effects on veterans of...
...to all who may be affected thereby...
...The President bowed to political expediency and signed the legislation...
...Jack Colhoun (Jack Colhoun, a bad paper vet, is a historian...
...A young man enticed into the military by a recruiter's false promise of training as a mechanic is burdened by bad papers stemming from his rebellion against subsequent assignment to the infantry...
...It was in this context that the ACLU filed two lawsuits in January...
...The boards are operating under unpublished standards varying from board to board...
...Young men compelled into military service by the draft or economic conscription, many of whom should never have been in uniform at all, find they have permanent records, the military equivalent of Federal felons, for offenses which do not exist in civilian society...
...He served as an editor of AMEX-Canada, the former magazine of exiled anti- Vietnam war resisters in Canada...
...Washington's apathy toward the new review program is reflected by the Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel's comment that the program has been publicized in the Federal Register, which "provides legal notice...
...Although a 1977 ACLU lawsuit resulted in a Pentagon proposal stipulating each case must be considered under published uniform standards, the operative directive omitted the proposal...
...A bizarre world In discussing the possible revival of the draft, it is important to consider the military's archaic discharge system and the harshly punitive effects on veterans of less-than-honorable discharges...
...Reform of the discharge system is urgently needed...
...In the post-Vietnam war era, high rates of unemployment of young men, especially in minority communities, has made volunteer military service more attractive than standing in unemployment compensation lines...
...Discharge review counselors report two similar cases brought before different boards frequently result in one being upgraded and the other being rejected...
...In the present era, when Washington politics are dominated by increasing militarism and belligerent demands for U.S...
...The Administration appeared indifferent as Congress and the Defense Department undermined the discharge review program...
...Congressional concern about deserters getting benefits was a wasted effort...
...The new law denied antiwar AWOLs veterans' benefits if their discharges were upgraded, and broadened eligibility criteria by including bad paper vets from the World War II and Korean War periods...
...For example, a potential first-rate plumber drafted during the Vietnam era whose opposition to that discredited war resulted in long-term AWOL may well be denied entry into his chosen trade because of bad discharge papers...
...These are typical results of the military's discharge policies...
...The 4,000 antiwar deserters eligible to return to military control for expeditious discharge, and consequently entitled to apply for upgrading of discharge status, became scapegoats for a vindictive Congress...
...Despite an SDRP provision qualifying those found to be conscientiously opposed to the war for upgrading, vengeful discharge review boards granted virtually no honorable discharges to the 885 AWOLs seeking them...
...intervention in Third World trouble spots, a reactivated draft presages a sharp rise in the numbers of vets whose lives will be crippled not by an enemy's bullet but by bad papers and the injustice of the discharge system...
...Responding to years of pressure by the veterans and amnesty movements for reform of the discharge system, the Carter Administration in 1977 instituted a Special Discharge Review Program (SDRP) to reevaluate 432,000 of the bad discharges of Vietnam-era vets...
...The number of vets eligible is estimated to be between one and two million...
...In the first suit, the court is asked to order each military service to produce the names and addresses of eligible bad paper vets so the Veterans Education Project can notify and encourage them to apply to the new discharge review program...
...The military discharge system is a travesty of justice...
...Early in 1 978 Congress acknowledged the SDRP's failure by passing new legislation for upgrading discharges...
...Young men from disadvantaged backgrounds were channeled into the military by the Selective Service System, filling the places left vacant by the sons of more privileged families able to avail themselves of the numerous loopholes in the conscription law...
...Who reads the Federal Register...
...A brief filed in January by the American Civil Liberties Union in the U.S...
...By the time the SDRP expired in the autumn of 1977, only about 33,000 eligible vets had applied for possible upgrading to honorable discharges...
...Led by Vietnam war hawks, both houses of Congress voted by wide margins to prohibit paid advertising of the upgrading program and to deny veterans1 benefits to those veterans whose discharges had been upgraded but who had been AWOL for more than 180 days...
...During the Vietnam era, more than 750,000 vets were given bad paper discharges, a disproportionate percentage going to the poor and minorities...
...In the second lawsuit, the court is charged to halt the inequitable processing of applicants by discharge review boards...
...But there has been no decline in the proportion of bad paper discharges issued, and the majority of them are handed down administratively rather than through legal due process...
...District Court in Washington, D.C., states: "Receipt of a less-than-honorable discharge stigmatizes its recipient, impairs his or her social and economic opportunities in civilian life and engenders substantial prejudice against him or her in civilian life...
...But again, the Administration, Congress, and the Pentagon have shown little enthusiasm for the program, which expires at the end of 1979...
Vol. 43 • June 1979 • No. 6
