He’ll Sacrifice You Too

Via Suburban Guerilla, I am reminded once again why it is important that Bush used his influence and connections to get out of fulfilling his obligation in the National Guard during wartime. It’s because he is now forcing poor schmucks likethis to go back on active duty in his misbegotten war in Iraq because he signed a form incorrectly. Bush has no moral authority to ask today’s soldiers to play by the rules when he flagrantly disregarded them himself.

A man who served the eight years required under his ROTC contract remains an Army reservist obliged to report for active duty because he failed to sign a resignation letter, a federal judge has ruled.

Todd Parrish, 31, had sought to block the Army from calling him to active duty until his lawsuit on the issue was decided.

But Judge Louise Flanagan denied the request on Friday, meaning that if the Army denies Parrish’s administrative appeal, he could be forced to go on active duty while the case is litigated.

Parrish signed the ROTC contract while a student at North Carolina State University. He argued that his military obligation ended Dec. 19, following four years of active duty and four years in the reserves.

His attorney, Mark Waple, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.

Army lawyer Maj. Chris Soucie told the judge that Parrish could be recalled to duty because he failed to sign a resignation line on a letter asking for an update on his personal information.

Parrish, a married communications officer, said he sent the Army a letter resigning his commission and did not sign the line on the form because he thought he had already resigned.

All this for a war we did not need to fight.

This brings up another point that people really should pay attention to if they are going to be doing any work with young people in the coming few weeks. If the military is so desperate for troops that they would force a guy back to active duty on this kind of a technicality after he’s just served eight years,(and they are) it looks more and more as if they are going to try to institute a draft after Bush is elected. It’s hard to see how they can avoid it.

Dave Johnson has more on this at Seeing The Forest:

The Draft – A Reason to Vote if You’re Under 30

You already blew it: You didn’t vote last time, or voted for Nader or Bush, and now you’re gonna get drafted. There’s no way around it now, the draft is almost a certainty.

You’re hearing about Reserve and National Guard units being called up, and about people not allowed to leave the military even though their term is up. Have you thought about what this means to you? You KNOW this means they’re having trouble finding enough soldiers to go to Iraq, right? Of course Bush doesn’t want to start the draft BEFORE the election. Duh! But what do you think happens the day AFTER the election?

I repeat, they are having trouble finding enough soldiers to go to Iraq. Think about it. Right, you’re gonna get drafted.

Or, maybe you think they can’t do that? Maybe you think the draft doesn’t happen in America. Maybe you think they can’t just grab your ass up off the street, stick a rifle in your hands and send you off to war? Of course not, that NEVER happens. Right.

And, they’ve been preparing for it for some time now:

Nov. 3, 2003 | The community draft boards that became notorious for sending reluctant young men off to Vietnam have languished since the early 1970s, their membership ebbing and their purpose all but lost when the draft was ended. But a few weeks ago, on an obscure federal Web site devoted to the war on terrorism, the Bush administration quietly began a public campaign to bring the draft boards back to life.

“Serve Your Community and the Nation,” the announcement urges. “If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men … receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service.”

Local draft board volunteers, meanwhile, report that at training sessions last summer, they were unexpectedly asked to recommend people to fill some of the estimated 16 percent of board seats that are vacant nationwide.

Especially for those who were of age to fight in the Vietnam War, it is an ominous flashback of a message. Divisive military actions are ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. News accounts daily detail how the U.S. is stretched too thin there to be effective. And tensions are high with Syria and Iran and on the Korean Peninsula, with some in or close to the Bush White House suggesting that military action may someday be necessary in those spots, too.

[…]

Even among those who think the public might support a draft, like Bandow at the Cato Institute, few believe Bush would dare to propose it before the November 2004 election. “No one would want that fight,” he explains. “It would highlight the cost of an imperial foreign policy, add an incendiary issue to the already emotional protests, and further split the limited-government conservatives.” But despite the Pentagon’s denials, planners there are almost certainly weighing the numbers just as independent military experts are. And that could explain the willingness to tune up the draft machinery.

John Corcoran, an attorney who serves on a draft board in Philadelphia, says he joined the Reserves to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. Today, he says, the Bush administration “is in deep trouble” in Iraq “because they didn’t plan for the occupation.” That doesn’t mean Bush would take the election-year risk of restarting the draft, Corcoran says. “To tell the truth, I don’t think Bush has the balls to call for a draft.

“They give us a training session each year to keep the machinery in place and oiled up in case, God forbid, they ever do reinstitute it,” he explains.

“They don’t want us to have to do it,” agrees Dan Amon, a spokesman for the Selective Service. “But they want us to be ready to do it at the click of a finger.”

The DOD webpage referred to in the piece above has been purged, oddly enough. Luckily it was saved by Information Clearinghouse:

Serve Your Community and the Nation

Become a Selective Service System Local Board Member

The Selective Service System wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board.

Prospective Board Members must be citizens of the United States , at least 18 years old, and registered with the Selective Service (if male). Prospective Board Members may not be an employee of any law enforcement occupation, not be an active or retired member of the Armed Forces, and not have been convicted of any criminal offense.

Once identified as qualified candidates for appointment, prospective Board Members are recommended by the Governor and appointed by the Director of Selective Service, who acts on behalf of the President in making appointments. Each new member receives 12 hours of initial training after appointment, followed by 4 hours of annual training for as long as he or she remains in the position. They may serve as Board Members for up to 20 years, if desired.

Local Board Members are uncompensated volunteers who play an important community role closely connected with our Nation’s defense. If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on Federal guidelines.

Positions are available in many communities across the Nation.

If there was ever a man with less moral authority to call up a draft than the phony AWOL flyboy, I don’t know who it would be. He has even less than someone who went to Canada — at least that person had to live with the consequences of his actions. This was a guy who had the gall to shove to the front of the line, play around with a million dollar airplane for a couple of years and then check out early for reasons we can only speculate about. It takes a lot of nerve for a man like that to tell soldiers who volunteered to go over and fight his losing battle for him. For a man like him to draft young men and women against their will is simply unthinkable. Yet, that is exactly what he is thinking.

All young people in this country should vote for John Kerry and they should drag their slacker friends to the polls with them. He faced all these choices head on in the crucible of his generation and he came out a man of strength and integrity. Bush ran away. Young people should realize that he will not hesitate to put their lives on the line to cover his ass. He did it to his fellow young men when he was twenty one years old, he’s doing it to reserves and national guard troops today and he’ll do it to young people with a draft tomorrow. It’s in his character to make others fight his battles and clean up his messes for him.