Book Chapter: PRIVATE JAMES EDWARD JENSEN, US ARMY

- Chapter Opening: Private James Edward Jensen, US Army -

This chapter opens with a bit of what was going on in the country at the time.  Jensen is one of the several aliases used by the bomber, and this is how he spent his fall and early winter in 1971.

The notion that ending the slavery of conscription is some Rightist plot to undermine protests is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard, and it took me by complete surprise when both Mark Rudd and Peter Coyote said the same thing, using almost the same words, in book promotion appearances for their various books.  I highly encourage everybody to read their books, their support of slavery notwithstanding.

I do not include the links to their video statements here, partly because the only versions of their videos are not easily queued to the supporting statement.  The links should be here and in the book before publication.

I

n 1971, conscription was still a part of life for men of a certain age in America.  The US was still fighting the war in Vietnam, as well as keeping the Soviets out of Western Europe and the Chinese out of South Korea.  The Gates Commission had published their report the previous year, recommending Dr. Milton Friedman’s idea of an all-volunteer military.[1]  However, in 1971 the Congress extended conscription another two years, into 1973.

One slogan that those on the squishy Left, and us True Right Minarchist libertarians can agree on: Conscription is Slavery.  For the hard Left Marxists (or just hard Left without Marx), you can hear the distress in the voices of Mark Rudd, Peter Coyote, and others, that conscription is gone.  They believe, and vocally complain, that an all-volunteer military is a Rightwing plot to thwart student protests. 

For those of us on the Right, it is not just a slogan, we really mean it and everyplace that has adopted the libertarian, free-market approach to manning their military has eliminated conscription.  As for the Marxists regimes, they never eliminate conscription until they eliminate their Stalinist modeled governments.  The Soviets continued their draft long after we ended ours, and it continues to this day in Russia, as well as Red China, North Korea …
Just in time for the 1971 draft season, the US Congress changed the draft system eliminating deferments and instating a lottery-type system.  I suppose the idea was to make the slavery “fair.” 

The draft lottery was televised that year, if I recall I watched a bit of it, but it did not make much sense to me as a nine year old.  However, it made perfect sense to Mike Martin and Harold Harris.  Harris had an undergraduate degree from North Carolina, and Martin was on the verge of completing his Architecture degree from Oklahoma State when his birth date drew a low lottery number.  Martin ran right out and joined an Oklahoma National Guard unit, did his active duty training, finished school and completed his National Guard commitment. 

The two became friends in Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri in August 1971, along with another fellow.  A tall, scrawny, pale college dropout by the name of James Edward Jensen.[2]

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[1]http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/MG265/images/webS0243.pdf Accessed June 23, 2013
[2] http://mikesslowroad.blogspot.com/2008/04/remembing-i-knew-radical.html Accessed June 23, 2013.

 Note: The footnotes here begin at 1, where in the book they begin at 1 in the first chapter and continue incrementally to the end.  They do not reset by chapter.