[media-credit name=’Ben Smidt’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]This story is first in a three-part series covering aspects of the military draft and the effect on young adults.

Karen Morris frowned as she recalled her formative years in the 1960s. She described them as “agitating” because many of her friends left for the Vietnam War on a military draft ticket.

“And to see so much agitation again because [the United States] started it is very scary,” Morris admitted, glancing at her 14-year-old son Neil. “I have two sons and I don’t want to see them drafted.”

Neil and Morris attended Monday’s “Military Draft and Conscientious Objection Night” at Pres Hall at Library Mall. Before sitting down among the two-dozen participants, the Morris family visited a few tables sprinkled with informational brochures.

“I don’t want to be drafted and I don’t want to kill anyone,” Neil said as he let his eyes travel over the brochures.

The meeting, hosted by the Veterans for Peace, Madison Peace Coalition and other organizations, addressed the issue of conscientious-objector status in case the military draft returns.

Michelle Nightoak, a volunteer for the Madison Peace Coalition, defined conscientious objections as “moral, ethical or religious beliefs that prevent you from participating in war.” This could give a person the right to refuse partaking in any military-related functions.

The gathering’s main goal was to start a conversation about alternatives to a possible draft in the future, Nightoak said earlier in the night. She urged people to fill out an attendance form and start a file, which would be a strong argument to avoid a hypothetical draft.

People in high school need to know they can legally withhold their names from military recruiters, Nightoak added. She compared recruiters to sales people who leave out pertinent information in order to attract students. For instance, a soldier’s terms and length of service can change without his knowledge.

“If you go to buy a brand new car, you want to get the full story — everything that’s right and wrong with it,” Nightoak said. “But you don’t always get it because they are selling you something they want you to buy.”

Veterans for Peace board member Don Kliese said students should know, unless they restrict the release of personal information, military recruiters could obtain it from their schools. He then asked the audience to imagine a recruiter’s nightmare in which 75 percent of males refused to register because they knew it was not required.

As an ex-veteran, Kliese also stated he could attest to how much pressure a soldier faces after enlisting. He said young people should get as many perspectives on joining the military as possible because once “you get past all the parade and the flash, it comes down to killing other human beings.”

However, the Madison Metropolitan School District has announced only 6 percent of Madison public high school students chose to deny the U.S. military their student records in 2003.

“The reasons could be lack of awareness or that people think ‘it isn’t gonna happen to me,'” Kliese said. “That is an unfortunate way of thinking because whatever affects some of us, affects all of us.”