The Peace Corps and the Draft

In spite of widespread national concern about the inequity and inefficiency of the draft, an effective overhaul of the Selective Service Act will almost certainly not occur until the Act comes up for renewal in 1968. But there is one simple change which Congress could and should make now. Two year service in the domestic or foreign peace corps should count as a complete and legitimate alternative to military service.

The principle of permitting non-military national service is an old and established one. But few persons are willing to go through the long, arduous process necessary to obtain C.O. classification. The result is that most draft-eligibles, especially college students, actively avoid fulfilling any national service requirement. Because there is no practicable alternative to the draft, students unwilling to fight but otherwise eager to serve their country are placed in the position of rejecting the concept of national service altogether. Moreover, those pacifists who are willing to serve in a peace-time army on the probability that they will never have to face killing someone, now--because of Vietnam--can no longer realistically do so.

For both the pacifist and non-pacifist, service in the Peace Corps seems every bit as much in the national interest as military service, and on a man-for-man basis, is probably more so. Congress has recognized this fact by offering the Corps whatever funds it has requested. And secretary of Defense McNamara concurred when he told a group of Peace Corps returnees last spring, "though we have three and three quarters million people in the Defense Department, I doubt very much that we have influenced the peace of the world as much as the small handful of you."

Yet the Peace Corps, as well as VISTA, its domestic counterpart, are unable to meet their manpower needs. At last count, 24 countries had made requests for Peace Corps volunteers which could not be met. The most conservative assessors of the Peace Corps manpower situation estimate that, if the Peace Corps were made an alternative to the draft, the number of qualified applicants would more than double overnight.

Critics of an alternative service proposal refuse to challenge the obvious advantages of the revision, preferring to base their opposition on the grounds that the move would damage the Peace Corps itself. They argue that the effectiveness of the Peace Corps, as a voluntary organization, depends on maintaining its volunteer status and elan; and maintain that if the Peace Corps were made an alternative to the draft, its unique character would be threatened. Some even contend that the extra trouble and expanse of processing the thousands of additional applications that would come in would make the program unfeasible.

Peace Corps officials, however disagree. They are confident they can select out the "deadbeats" from a larger flow of volunteers. Neither would the volunteer spirit nor the quality of the applicants suffer. Draftees would still have to elect the Peace Corps over the army: the pay would be lower, the work harder, and the standards--with an increase in applicants--could be raised considerably. Moreover, the highly qualified body of college students, who now shun the Peace Corps for the greater security of graduate school, could now volunteer without fear of further obligation when they return to school.

Lamentably, though understandably, Peace Corps officials have resisted pushing draft-exemption for the Corps, arguing that such appeals must come to Congress from those not involved with the Corps. But their restraint is no longer appropriate. The Corps' popularity is secure enough that it can advocate the change without fear of Congressional retaliation. For the Administration, which preaches peace constantly at home and abroad, the change would demonstrate that it means what it says.

Draft revision with more realistic opportunities for alternative service would improve the quality of both VISTA and Peace Corps volunteers. The "evasion mentality" now dominant among students on American campuses would largely disappear if volunteer service became a legitimate option. And the "unpatriotic" stigma would be removed from those willing to serve their country, but unwilling to fight or further a complex and dirty war in Vietnam. Revision would be the first step toward making the selective service genuinely selective; the sooner this step is taken, the better.