JEFFREY HERF
WE WON'T GO
We the undersigned men of draft age wish to announce that we refuse
to be drafted into the United States Armed Forces. By withholding
our participation we are saying "No" to the continuing barbarism of
the Vietnam War. We are responsible for our actions. We openly say
"No" to conscripted military service. Our refusal to participate in the
madness of the Vietnam War in no way implies a renunciation of our
country. Our act of refusal is in fact an act of loyalty because it aims
at redeeming rather than smothering human potential here in the
United States and around the world. We are taking this stand both to
assert our personal integri ty and self-respect, and to try to stem the
kind of assumptions and policies exemplified by the Vietnam War. We
urge all young men of draft age who can conscientiously do so, to
assume responsibility for their lives and to join us in this stand.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO STAND ALONE
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Of the many statements I signed, leaflets I wrote, or speeches I delivered
in those years, this simultaneous expression of loyalty, conscience, and dis–
obedience is the one of which I am most proud. I framed it and through
the many moves of academic life it has hung in my study for most of the
past thirty years. It stood in contrast to the manifestos of
1968-1970
in its
use of clear, grammatically correct American English; it eschewed the dis–
course about imperialism and national liberation struggles, and did not
support the other side. On the other hand, the statement was a product of
New Left anti-anticommunism. It contained no criticism of the North
Vietnamese Communists or of the National Liberation Front in South
Vietnam. Yet we were more opposed to what the United States was doing
in Vietnam than we were explicitly in favor of a Communist victory. Moral
protest rooted in liberal values, more than explicit Marxism-Leninism or
even romance about third-world armed struggles, accurately describes my
own-and I think a majority of the signers'--state of mind in
1967.
Some C0ITU11entators, taking note of how much the antiwar movement
declined after the draft was replaced with a lottery, have stressed the ele–
ment of self-interest in the draft resistance movement. This point about
self-interest divorced from political and moral convictions is a valid one
but it applies less to us signers of the "We Won't Go" statements than to
almost all of the draft-age young men of the American middle and upper
classes. (The war was fought overwhelmingly by the white working class
and non-white minorities). In fact, with only few exceptions, the entire
American middle class avoided the draft. These silent resisters included the
