The Cold Draft

To a student awakened each morning in his Leverett Towers suite by the soft eleven o'clock chimes from Mem Church, nothing could seem more remote than 5 a.m. revellie at Fort Dix. Yet that bugle call is sounding nearer every day. As a result of President Kennedy's Executive Order dropping all married men to the bottom of the IA draft pool, the draft is moving well into the college years. According to General Lewis B. Hershey, director of Selective Service, "in a few months a student with a IA rating will be lucky if he can reach age 22 without being drafted or deferred."

If this fact itself does not concern Harvard seniors carrying IA classifications, two other assertions from the general should. Hershey claims that a college student whose local draft board is unaware of his status as a student is a draft delinquent and could be drafted out of college, depending on the lenience of local officials. Secondly, if a major military crisis occurs, students who neglected to request IIS deferments within ten days of their initial classification might find their local boards receptive to a last minute deferment, Hershey adds. Moreover, according to Hershey, these students are playing a losing game since no one ever gets to age 26 without a deferment anyway.

Avoiding or at least postponing military service has become a subtle collegiate art, and for years it has been practised despite grim Selective Service warnings. Yet, each year the maze of Selective Service regulations becomes a little more difficult to negotiate. Policies change, rules are added, and the whims of local draft boards often defy logic. Recognizing these facts, Yale, for the past two years, has offered students the counsel of a civilian military service advisor, a faculty member with extensive knowledge of current Selective Service policies to whom students may go for objective facts and advice. The military service advisor does not devote himself to helping Yalies avoid the draft, but as a civilian unassociated with the Selective Service he does not intimidate them from asking direct and honest questions.

For once Harvard can learn from Yale; reliable civilian advice on Selective Service policies has been long overdue here. A Harvard student presently seeking such counsel from the registrar's office gets only a "we don't know." From Dean Monro he hears that "the whole situation is too complicated for us to get involved with." And advisors at the Office for Graduate and Career Plans tell him "we only know what we read in the papers." With the draft age moving down to 22, the inadequacy of such answers and the responsibility of the University to inform itself and then inform its students is more evident than ever.

Military service is a stumbling block to many careers. It could easily interrupt many Harvard educations. The University should appoint a respected member of the administration to serve part time, or if need be full-time, as a student military service advisor. Since he must not rely entirely on Selective Service propaganda for his facts, he will need an office staff equipped to prepare, or at least disseminate, independent information on the current Selective Service situation. Concerned students have a right to receive more from their College officials than the phone number of the Boston Selective Service Board.