Word: conscription
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...both situations, the student feels a strong sense of powerlessness in the decision-making process. Ten years ago students did not question the government's right to conscript in the interests of national security. Nor did they question the Administration's authority to regulate parietals. Today, more sophisticated students are insisting that their own opinions on such issues have to be recognized. The sanctity of authority has been tarnished and the priming device has been students' experience with the Vietnam War. Of course disillusionment with authority doesn't necessarily lead to activism. But given the examples of anti-war protest...
...schools close down, medical aid disappears, roads are cut and sabotaged. As they liberate the peasants from Saigon's "oppression," the Viet Cong demand far more than Saigon would dare ask. Taxes are several times higher, and though the Viet Cong rail against the government's draft laws, which conscript young men at 20 for three years' service, the Communists take boys as young as 14 and 15 for service until the end of a war that they predict may last another 20 years. Promises of a better life and a certain Viet Cong victory are belied almost daily...
...warfare, carnage is relieved by inactivity or restless boredom. The only respite Kuniczak gives his readers is short inconsequential conversations and brief bursts of attempted Joycean lyricism. Laboriously, he relates the personal agonies of a one-armed Polish general and his mistress, a disillusioned American correspondent, a Jewish conscript from the Warsaw ghetto and an idealistic young Nazi officer. Kuniczak seldom strays far from the heated sights and shrieks of battle. At any rate, he seems to have a gift for divining the public taste. This is a Book-of-the-Month-Club selection...
Hard-hit by mounting battle losses and a dwindling supply of young men to conscript, the Viet Cong are finding it difficult to keep their ranks well filled. As a result, they are turning more and more to women to help the war effort. Backing up Victor Charlie-the G.I.s' name for the Viet Cong-are the female Victoria Charlenes, some of whom actually fight. The V.C.'s attractive, much-advertised heroine, Ta Thi Kieu, packs four rifles at a time and boasts that she has participated in 33 battles. The vast majority of the Victoria Charlenes perform...
...that, freedom of dissent has made steady progress, particularly since the Supreme Court extended the First Amendment to the states in 1925. The right to criticize public officials in print, in speech and in the streets is now firmly rooted throughout U.S. law. The draft cannot be used to conscript critics; a conscientious objector can rely on any God he chooses. The civil rights movement has taught Americans to accept nonviolent demonstrations in pursuit of constitutional rights. The rejection of McCarthyism, the civilizing of U.S. criminal justice-such milestones have moved America ever closer to its professed ideals. Few today...