Featured War Resister: Steve Yoczik
Steve Yoczik is a candid, smart, funny guy. Listening to him brought back childhood memories for me of a fictional M.A.S.H. character, Corporal Klinger. While in training he discovered that he had been recruited for an already moribund military job and was destined for general infantry deployment in Iraq (and further that the military was continuing to deceitfully recruit and train for this occupation with intentions of deploying every trainee in the same fashion). Steve waged a concerted bid to be kicked out of the army. Over a period of months, he deliberately failed between 50 and 100 physical tests. When it became obvious that the officers would not file three consecutive failing reports so as to have his status reviewed, Steve started to fail to appear for the tests and was flippant, if not outright insubordinate, if these absences brought any reproach. Steve figures he was gone for a while before anyone realized that he was AWOL. He found out about the War Resisters Support Campaign in Canada through a friend - a model soldier and US patriot who disagreed so strongly with the war in Iraq that he fled to Canada rather than participate in it. With only one passed physical between him and Iraq, Steve had to make the same choice.
The War Resisters Support Campaign is easier to find than it was two or three years ago. As well, the recruitment requirements in the US have led to a host of unacceptable practices becoming the order of the day. Many of the latest Resisters to arrive are those who have been involuntarily "called back" to serve in Iraq after prolonged periods in civilian life, the so-called "back door draft". Documented dishonesty around recruitment efforts in schools, and about the consequences of rethinking deferred enlistment agreements, have spawned campaigns to keep the military out of many U.S. high schools. The American public is disenchanted with the "war on terror", and supporting War Resisters has become a known and valuable anti-war political movement. And with the U.S. economy poised for a downturn, many more young Americans are at risk of being hoodwinked through the "poverty draft" and deceitful recruitment practices.
Here in Canada, many of the first resisters to come across the border are now at a point in the Immigration and Refugee hearing processes where they are at risk of being deported before Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey can take their case to court, raising the crucial question: can "mere" foot soldiers can use the illegal status of the war to underpin their refugee claims?
Meanwhile the Campaign continues to lobby for the political solution: these War Resisters must be given sanctuary under a separate immigration category, much like the US war resisters of the Vietnam era received under the Trudeau government.
