outside of the very, very annoying and the very difficult position that our country was wrong. I know that this raises the whole issue of patriotism. But from the activity on campus, from the activity in the communities, I am terribly impressed that the collapse, whether we call it a moral collapse or however we want to describe it, really is a terible flight from decisionmaking, from involvement on the lowest grassroots level. And part of this is due to the fact that we have made kind of a god out of our country; civil religion, if you want to call it that or not. But I would certainly wish that somehow we could consider the possibility that we were wrong and that we could live perhaps with that. And in that context then the amnesty is above the rigor of the law as such. Thank you. Mr. KASTENMEIER. Thank you. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Mezvinsky. Mr. MEZVINSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses from Iowa for coming here and for giving us a view from the Midwest. I would like to have either witness describe a recent incident that happened in Iowa concerning a young man that came home to his father's funeral. This illustration is a good example of what this problem has on the community. I would certainly like to have your comments on that. Mrs. MULLEN. Father Smith is more familiar with the incident than I am. Reverend SMITH. A young man by the name of Allen Kelley, who had been refused a CO classification and who went through all of the appeals, State and national, and finally when the issue of induction came he refused to be inducted and he left for Canada, recently his father died in Rock Island, Ill., and after several years in Canada he came back-excuse me, I mean he had been in Canada for several years and his father died and he came back for the funeral and was arrested and apprehended at the time. It was made quite clear in the papers that the FBI do watch obituaries to keep themselves in touch with some of these young men. I think what Congressman Mezvinsky may be alluding to is the remarkable local response as reflected in the newspapers. It was quite clear after several days that the community was responding very warmly to this young man and I think it was something a little more than just that it did not seem quite cricket that this was the way should be done, but this was really where the amnesty issue was that they were concerned with. These are the young men that we are deeply concerned about. Mr. MEZVINSKY. Mrs. Mullen, in telling us of the circumstances surrounding your son's death, you made a very eloquent statement. As you ended your testimony you said that you hope he died so that some other mother's son somewhere might now come home. Would you care to elaborate on that ending and why you feel so deeply that there is a connection between your son's death and the question of amnesty? Mrs. MULLEN. Well, I feel that almost everyone that testified against amnesty continuously talks about the mothers and fathers who lost sons and how they feel. How many of you know how we feel? How many of you talked to fathers and mothers that actually lost sons? We really know the anguish of a son being gone and in my heart. I feel that these men that died in Vietnam, when they died, they are not thinking of dying for their country. They are dying and fighting to save their own lives. They kill. My son became a killer because he did not want to die there. He did not become a killer in Vietnam because of his country. And this is what all of you seem to forget. There are no heroes in a foxhole in Vietnam. There are none as far as this country is concerned. And they are just as unpatriotic at that stage as the man who ran away. And I think if the dead could come back from their graves, the issue could be settled immediately. Mr. MEZVINSKY. I want to thank you both. Mr. Chairman, I will defer any questions to my colleagues in the committee. Mr. KASTEN MEIER. The gentleman from Massachusetts. Mr. DRINAN. I simply want to say, Mrs. Mullen and Father Smith that after a long day of testimony, this has been the most moving and the most eloquent and I do want to assure you that we will continue to try to legislate so that some other mother's son might come home and so that, as Father Smith put it, we will not any longer make a God out of our country. Mr. KASTEN MEIER. Mr. Smith? Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too want to thank Mrs. Mullen and Father Smith for coming here today with such moving testimony. Thank you very much. Mr. KASTEN MEIER. The conmittee thanks you both for your testimony. This is an appropriate ending of our second day—— Mrs. MULLEN. Could I say one more thing? May I please? Mrs. MULLEN. I was hoping someone would ask me about the inequities of the draft system. This is the basis of the whole thing. It has always been interesting to me in following the war-and I had been following it long before my son died-that not a Senator lost a son in Vietnam, not a Congressman lost a son in Vietnam, not a President lost a son in Vietnam, no Ambassador in Vietnam. Where did they come from, these citizen soldiers? He came from the farm. He came from the ghetto. He came from the mountains of West Virginia. I visited a lady in West Virginia whose son died with my son. They lived outside of Pittsburgh. It was 32 miles from the hill to his home. The boy probably had not even heard of Vietnam. When I visited with her, she told me three of those boys on the hill had died in 90 days. A month later I was in Washington lobbying for 609 and I spent quite a lot of time trying to see Senator Hugh Scott. I was unable to see him, but I did visit at length with a great many of his aides, who were all very young and asked each and every one why they were not in the service and they quickly said they had CO's. The boys on the top of the hill did not even know what the word CO meant. Do you know that in the State of Pennsylvania that if you were employed by a large industry, like Bethlehem Steel, Inland Steel, Alleghany, that if you were sweeping the floor, you had an automatic deferment? I think these are the things that you must realize. If you are asking a handful of boys to give 2 more years to their country, how about the millions of people who knew somebody? Thank you. Mr. SMITH. Might I say something? I appreciate what you have said, but there were some Congressmen who lost sons in this war. There were a lot of Congressmen and a lot of Senators who had sons in the war. I happen to have three daughters. But there were a lot of people. here in Congress who had personal experience of what the war meant. The other thing I would like to say to you is this. I have to agree with you that in many respects the Selective Service law, the draft law, was inequitable and worked inequitably but it was I think probably maybe not the best that could be done, but it was an effort to set forth national priorities for the vet's interest and the welfare of the Nation. I would say that I did serve on a draft board and we had some big industries and nobody got an automatic deferment in each case. And I would say, as I did say, there were many inequities. There cannot help but be inequities when human beings are trying to run an imperfect human system. But I would say that the effort was made and the basis for what were discriminations-and there were discriminations was based, as any imperfect system can only try to base it, on what the national welfare was, for instance, whether a man was a doctor and so on. The educational deferments, for instance, were based on the belief, whether it was right or wrong, that an educated person would better serve the welfare of the Nation. So I just want to make some defense for the system, imperfect as it may have been. Mr. KASTEN MEIER. This concludes today's hearings. On Wednesday next at 10 o'clock in this room, 2141, we will have our third and final day of hearings on the question of amnesty. Until that time the committee stands adjourned. [Whereupon at 4:35 o'clock p.m. the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, March 13, 1974.] AMNESTY WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1974 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m. in room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert M. Kastenmeier, chairman, presiding. Present: Representatives Kastenmeier, Danielson, Drinan, Owens, Mezvinski, Railsback, Smith, Sandman, and Cohen. Also present: Mr. William P. Dixon, counsel; and Mr. Thomas E. Mooney, associate counsel. Mr. KASTENMEIER. The subcommittee will come to order for this third and last day of hearings on the subject of amnesty and on various pieces of legislation dealing with the subject of amnesty. We will try to complete our hearings before the morning is out. Some members will be called to other meetings, I believe. I am very pleased to greet-representing the Secretary of Defense-Lt. Gen. Leo E. Benade, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy. You and your associates, whom you may care to identify, General Benade, are most welcome, and we look forward to your help in explaining the policy position of the Defense Department on this very crucial question. TESTIMONY OF LT. GEN. LEO E. BENADE, U.S. ARMY, DEPUTY AS- General BENADE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you as a representative of the Department of Defense to address the subject of amnesty. Chairman Kastenmeier's letter of February 20, 1974, indicates that this subcommittee is considering nine legislative items which involve a variety of proposals concerning present and former service members as well as civilian criminal offenders. The issue of draft evaders and other civilian offenders is primarily within the purview of the Department of Justice and the Selective Service System. The primary interest of the Department of Defense is, of course, in the discussion about the impact that some possible form of relief for military offenders, principally deserters, will have on our ability to maintain a responsive fighting force. |