Rider University - Shadow Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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Be a Deferred Customer You Have A Friend At The Draft Counseling Center by Robert Fritz Draft Center Counselor We have organized and operated the Draft Coun- seling Center because we believe that, as draft-age men, each of us needs to know our rights and obliga- tions under the Selective Service System if we hope to have some control over our destinies. Many people have justly criticized the government for its failure to provide adequate information to draft regis- trants. lt should be possible to go to a draft board and get a pamphlet fully explaining the regulations on defer- ments for men, on conscientious objection, on student deferments or on physical standards, but no such publi- cations are provided by Selective Service. Therefore, if one wants to know his choices and rights, he must turn elsewhere. The Counseling Center at Rider is our con- tribution to that need. We, who staff and operate the Counseling Center have as our main function the job of properly inter- preting the Selective Service Act as it pertains to each registrant. Each man that comes to us has a specific problem or question relating to his draft status. We at- tempt to help him solve that problem or answer that question utilizing all necessary and pertinent information. As the draft is presently organized, many people have become critical of it. Thus a discussion of the draft of- ten becomes a controversial debate on questions of mil- itary and foreign policy, and ultimately ends up on the subject of what kind of society Americans want. Those who advocate positions on these subjects offer an im- portant social and political service. Many times we at the Center become engaged in discussions that are concerned with these issues. This is all well and good: there is a need for this type of discussion. However, this is not the major purpose of the Counseling Center. Our object is to explore the alternatives open to the men faced by decisions about the draft. We try to de- scribe the choices, whether popular or unpopular, which might interest more than a few people. We then relate the choices to the specific problem of the man. Although we at the Center have strong opinions, we try to keep them out of our counseling. All we advocate is that each man get the fullest possible information, consider his choices carefully in terms of his own val- ues, and make his own decisions. If he doesn't, his draft board will decide for him. We at the Center believe that each man should try to control his own life, not allow a government agency or any other body to control it for him. Each man must de- cide where he stands with regard to military service. De- cisions about the draft involve questions of education, career, health, marriage, of conscience and principle, of life and death. One must realize that the basic function 96 of the military is to wage war, not to build men. Its really quite a sad commentary on the wealthiest country in the world that many young men who want to better themselves feel forced to join an organization that de- stroys other young men who doubtless would also like to better themselves. Consequently, we believe each man to the fullest extent possible should make such basic decisions for himself. We, at the Center hold to our beliefs a statement by Joan Baez: Ultimately you can listen to only one thing, not your President, not your many misguided leaders, save a few, not the Communists or the Socialists or the Republicans or the Democrats, but you must lis- ten to your heart and do what it dictates. Because your heart is the only thing which can tell you what is right and what is wrong. An increasing number of young men are saying, War is not the way! by refusing to serve in the military. For the majority of these youth this refusal is only one small part of their saying YES to life, to the beauty of the uni- verse and the dignity of man-to the task of helping to build a more truly human future for all men. As informed citizens, everyone should know what legal alternatives to military service are offeredg yet few do know. Our purpose at the Draft Counseling Center is to offer people an awareness, if they desire it. si X N X lx-Xxx X 'ff -.-. an ,.-,, 41,14 I I H XXX I I 1 J fs, 'llll I .ff l SQL

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jllllaho lt- mul if gf itil 325 lil C 2 Laws prohibiting the use of drugs should be repealed. lf such laws were repealed, I have no doubts that drug usage would go down and the issue of drugs would be brought out into the open. By repealing these laws, those who take drugs for the sake of rebellion would lose their anti-legal motivation source. Many people take drugs for the sake of rebel- lion, as many drank alcoholic beverages during Prohibition. No longer would fear of legal measures be an excuse for a drug user to avoid rapping about the justification of his habit. For many people legalization of drugs means facing the fact that as bright as they are, they have rationalized what for them is an irrational habit. Also, it is not the province of busy bodies-as right as they may be-to force others with respect to how they treat their bodies, minds and souls, Busy bodies tend to ,I-IQ Q . if do more harm than good. Laws prohibiting drug usage infringe upon the reli- gious freedom of those who take drugs for religious reasons. Marijuana offers about as much a religious ex- perience as alcohol. The latter, by-the-way, has pro- vided a religious experience for many people through- out history. Those who advocate the prohibition of drugs such as have already been mentioned should ad- mit to themselves, if nobody else, that they are depriv- ing some people of their religious freedom by taking from their reach one means of a possible religious-type experience. People should ask themselves how far they are willing to allow government to protect you from yourself. Are they willing to go so far that the result of legal prohibi- tions are worse than what they are prohibiting and are clearly limiting the religious freedom of others? SQ 95

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