The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

November 26, 2023 / Edward Hasbrouck / Draft Resistance News - Hundreds of people were arrested in sit-ins and other direct actions against draft registration in the 1980s, particularly at Post Offices during the mass registration weeks in July-August 1980 for men born in 1960 and 1961 and in January 1981 for men born in 1962.

Additional mass arrests took place outside court hearings in the cases of several of the 20 men eventually singled out for prosecution for publicly refusing to register, and during a blockade of Selective Service headquarters in Washington, DC, on 18 October 1982. (See these posters for some of these sit-ins and blockades.)

The consequences of these arrests were varied, but in some cases — particularly when arrests occurred inside Post Office buildings, which are generally areas of exclusive Federal jurisdiction, rather than outside on streets or sidewalks subject to state and local jurisdiction — included Federal charges.

The “Boston 18” were arrested inside the Post Office and courthouse in downtown Boston during the January 1981 registration week. The Post Office counters where draft registrations were being accepted by postal clerks were located on the second floor, inside the building, which also housed the offices of the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, the U.S. Attorney, and the courtrooms and judges’ chambers of both the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The fact that the sit-in took place in the same building as their offices may have led them to take it more personally and respond with more severity than they might have to an action elsewhere, but there’s no hard evidence of that.

The Boston 18 included Mark Bader, Elisa Barbour, Bill Beck, Carol Bellin, Chris Cutelis, Elizabeth Davidson, Mary Dore, Diane Dunfey, Ed Feigen, Carl Gerds, Sean Herlihy, Chuck Hughes, Gary Sachs, Rich Schreuer, Barry Shea, Anne Shumway, and Cynthia Waillette

Arecibo, Puerto Rico August 20, 2023 Statement: Young veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who suffers from his mental faculties due to his incursion into the wars, is accused of taking his father's life in events that occurred in May , 2022

August 08, 2023 / Sonia Santiago Hernández / Mothers Against the War - Christian González Martell is a 39-year-old Puerto Rican young man, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who deprived his father of his life on May 30, 2022 during a psychotic episode. . At the first hearing on September 14, the judge determined that he was not prosecutable at the time. Despite this, he has been subjected to several hearings in court. His trial will begin on September 21st.

His family had tried to get him treated at the Veterans Hospital in Rio Piedras upon his return from the military.. His mother, Romilda Martell, tells us that Christian has multiple mental health diagnoses: schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress syndrome and others, result of his participation in wars. The treatment of him at the Veterans Administration was substandard and irresponsible. They only assisted him sporadically and virtually. He exhibited extreme paranoid behavior, poor judgment, hallucinations. Mrs. Martell asked for support and adequate treatment for her son, to no avail. Today she awaits trial for murder.

We have several veterans incarcerated: Orlando Rivera, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, in 2014 murdered 2 people on the Tuque de Ponce beach, while he was jogging. Doña Carmen Delgado was one of the victims. As she opened an umbrella , he murdered her with a pistol and continued jogging..His family had taken him to the Veterans Hospital on several occasions. They told him that there were no psychiatric beds and that he should go to a civilian hospital. Soldiers and veterans are prohibited from talking about war actions. It is difficult for them to receive therapies in civilian clinics... The Veterans Hospital did not follow up. He was sentenced to 97 years in prison.

Esteban Santiago, a young Puerto Rican veteran, is imprisoned for life in a jail in Florida. He murdered 5 people at the Ft. Lauderdale airport

in 2017. His family had taken him to receive treatment at the Veterans Hospital in PR when they noticed his incoherent and aggressive behavior after having fought in Afghanistan. That hospital did not treat him responsibly.

Twenty veterans commit suicide daily. Forty percent of the two and a half million soldiers who have participated in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan have a mental health diagnosis, mainly Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.