University of Virginia Library

Virginia Mobe To Protest
JAG Facilities, ROTC

By Rob Buford
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

As a part of what they call "a
nationwide effort to dismantle the war
machine," local leaders of the Virginia
Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam
(Virginia Mobe) are formulating plans for
anti-war and anti-draft protest here this
week.

Steve Squire, a co-chairman of Virginia
Mobe, said that his group's activities
will get underway tonight at 6:30 with an
"anti-military industrial complex" gathering
during which the Judge Advocate
General's (JAG) School will be "condemned."

Mr. Squire said the meeting will take
place at the JAG School behind Clark
Hall. He did not specify as to what form
the "condemnation" might assume and expressed
dissatisfaction with the fact that
"liberal lawyers do not speak out against the
JAG program."

At 2 p.m. today the Radical Student Union
will sponsor a film entitled "ROTC." The film
was made at Harvard by a group called
Newsreel. It deals with the decision at Harvard
to dispense with its ROTC program and
includes background on the decision.

On Thursday at 12:30 there is scheduled a
"brief assemblage" at which support will be
solicited for the National Anti-Draft Week
activities (March 16-22). The meeting will take
place at the Chapel. There will be pledge cards
for those wishing to disavow support for the
Selective Service System.

"Draft cards may be turned in at that time,"
said Mr. Squire, who also raised the possibility
that some cards might be burned in protest.

Following the Chapel meeting, participants
will "walk to the Charlottesville draft board
offices," according to Mr. Squire. "We just
want to talk to the people there," he added.

Nationally, the New Mobilization Committee
to End the War in Vietnam, which
sponsored last fall's protest activities climaxed
by the November 15 March on Washington, has
issued statements concerning its plans this
week.

"Starting on March 16 we call on our fellow
citizens to join us in civic action against the
draft and against recruiting. We will engage in
four days of action...in dozens of towns and
cities across the nation."

Their course of action calls for "strict
obedience" to the Selective Service laws. For
example, the law requires that an individual
registered for the draft keep his local board
informed of his health. The Mobe urges
compliance, saying, "Do this every day."

The plan is to overburden the system
through a program of strict interpretation.
Thus, there will be special demonstrations of
"obedience" to the law, "with the hope that by
providing the draft boards with information
they must process and enter in their files, they
may be overloaded and the machinery of death
stopped."

"We will seek to engage the members of the
draft boards of the nation in dialogue," says
one Mobe official. This effort will be combined
with marches and leafleting programs during
the week.

On another front, the vice-chairman of the
University Young Americans for Freedom
announced yesterday that his group will be
collecting signatures in support of a volunteer
army as a replacement for the Selective Service
System.

Eric Royce told The Cavalier Daily that
anyone desiring to sign such a petition may do
so at the YAF table during the lunch hour in
Newcomb Hall, second floor.

"The basics of the volunteer military
concept," said Mr. Royce, "are reduction in
troop levels, higher wages and improved
benefits to attract sufficient enlistees, better
and more specialized training, and longer terms
of service to more efficiently use that training."

He emphasized that "YAF opposes the draft
on a number of grounds, including efficiency,
but its immorality is the primary issue.
Conscription involves a serious deprivation of
civil liberties, a violation of an individual's
freedom of choice."

"Freedom, by definition, involves voluntary
action. Compelling individuals to fight to
protect freedom is a contradiction in terms."
Mr. Royce added, "Personally, I view the draft
as one part of the increasingly stasis
power-centralization syndrome. The trend
toward excessive power in federal hands needs
to be halted."