Reactions and Oppositions to the War

Reactions and Oppositions to the war

Ann Sherwin believed that no government had the right to force anyone to join the army, and if she was a man that she would refuse to register. She argues that not all anti-conscription protesters are communists, and in fact many protesters are anti-communist and are arguing for different reasons.

C. N. Geschke said that voluntary recruiting had not been given sufficient chance of proving its worth, he says that if as much effort went into improving the armies image and conditions, as went into the national service campaign, then the amount of volunteers would be adequate thus removing the need for conscription. He then goes onto say that it would be "unrealistic" to not attempt to have voluntary forces. He finishes by saying that conscription was an easy way out and that the government was deferring a much needed examination of why the voluntary recruiting campaign failed.

On page 14 there are many different arguments, the first person simply believes it is morally wrong, the second person believes that if you are going to defy national service it should be done openly and not hidden away. The third is from an anti-conscription newsletter; it starts by saying that the DRM (Draft Resistance Movement) was not formed to stop resistance but to wreck it. They say that that want to make conscription as ineffective as possible by holding demonstrations, by telling people how to fail medical exams and generally encourage people not to register. The final passage tells already conscripted men to lay down there arms to stop the war.

On page 269 it outlines some of the more radical anti-NS techniques that some protesters used such as rasing money for the national liberation front. By 1968 even some politicians were tired of the fighting and Johnson announced he would not be standing for another term.

One of the biggest protests were the moratoriums where in Melbourne alone 100,000 people turned out to support the retrieval of troops from Vietnam. This was powerful as it showed how many people where against the war and it wasn't just young "hippies" protesting but also older generational including the radical new movement SOS (Save our sons).

7.37 is a poem about a mother being hopeless to save her son and how he was like every other conscript, who had a girlfriend and surfed. At the