Refusal to Submit

Author Richard Gould documents the Draft Resistance Movement and a young man's coming of age during the Vietnam War. He details his decision to refuse to be drafted into the U.S. army and the events that follow his arrest, trial, and eventual imprisonment in a federal prison in Safford, Arizona. As his story unfolds, the origins of the war and his reasons for opposing it emerge, placing his prison experience within the larger framework of the historical events occurring on a national...
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Author Richard Gould documents the Draft Resistance Movement and a young man's coming of age during the Vietnam War. He details his decision to refuse to be drafted into the U.S. army and the events that follow his arrest, trial, and eventual imprisonment in a federal prison in Safford, Arizona. As his story unfolds, the origins of the war and his reasons for opposing it emerge, placing his prison experience within the larger framework of the historical events occurring on a national and global scale.Structured as letters to his college-age children, he aims not only to document the confusion, anger, and atrocities of the Viet Nam era, but also to pass the history of resistance on to the next generation of young activists and critical thinkers. The letter format carries the story forward, stitching together historical events and personal experience, becoming an invitation to anyone faced with moral decisions about national policy in our modern times. Refusal to Submit is not only a testimony to the humanity and bravery of those who refused to serve in the Vietnam War that they knew to be a moral atrocity and a national calamity. It is also a guide to a nonviolent spiritual progressive consciousness that may well be needed throughout the coming years as fascistic thinking once again emerges to run our country and seeks to obliterate our humanity and our love. Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor of Tikkun Magazine and chair of the Interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives