From Pastor Brown
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/draftreturning14apr04.shtml
April 14, 2004

Date: 14 Apr 2004
Subject: The Draft Is Coming Back! (For boys and girls age 18--26)
From: phyllism5@juno.com

Become active on this one, the lives you save may be your sons and daughters or grandkids. Share this with everyone.

THE DRAFT IS COMING BACK!

If there are children in your family, READ this. There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 -- just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately. Details and links follow.

Even those voters who currently support us. Actions abroad may still object to this move, knowing their own children or grandchildren will not have a say about whether to fight. Not that it should make a difference, but this plan, among other things, eliminates higher education as a shelter and includes women in the draft

Also, crossing into Canada has already been made very difficult. Actions, actions, actions: Please send this on to all the parents and teachers you know, and all the aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents.... And let your children know -- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change!

Please also write to your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills -- and write to newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.

The draft $28 million has been added to the 2004 selective service system (sss) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. Selective Service must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the sss annual performance plan - fiscal year 2004.

The pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on "terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5146.htm

Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and HR 163 forward this year, http://www.hslda.org/legislation/national/2003/s89/default.asp entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services.

Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a "smart border declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's minister of foreign affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.

WHAT TO DO:
- Tell all your friends
- Contact your media
- Contact your Senators and tell them to oppose these bills.

For the full list of representatives (53) and websites, go to:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newseek.cgi?site=ctc&state=ca

We just can't sit and pretend that by ignoring it, it will go away. We must voice our concerns and create the world we want to live in for our children and their children's children. Submitted by Sophie Lapaire

In addition to the above suggestions of what to do, consider also sending this information to local newspapers, colleges and high schools. Unless of course you want your children, grandchildren both girls -- yes girls -- and boys to be drafted.

May God be glorified in each of our lives!

Sincerely,

Pastor Brown, an unworthy servant of a very worthy Sovereign LORD.

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do."

- Edward Everett Hale

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