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News & Events
Home › An engaged electorate is...

Peace and War in the Heartland Executive
Director Frank Kroncke discussed how the draft lottery worked during the Vietnam
War and how it could operate again.

An engaged electorate is peace activist's goal

By Julie
Michener
March 13,
2008

Peace and War in the Heartland and the Heart of the Beast Theatre
collaborated to show students, faculty and staff that the 1960’s social
revolution was more than a counterculture movement.

Also growing out of that era were the anti-war and anti-draft movements in
reaction to the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War.

Frank
Kroncke, a member of the “Minnesota 8” and author of the book, Outlaw or
American Patriot?, led the audience through an exercise on how the draft
lottery worked and how it changed lives.

The Minnesota 8 was one part of
a larger group, called "The Minnesota Conspiracy to Save Lives," whose members
raided Selective Service draft boards in Minnesota on July 10, 1970.

The
FBI arrested eight men. One of the 8 pleaded guilty and received probation while
the remaining seven received the maximum sentence of five years in federal
prison.

Arrested while he was teaching summer session at St. Kate’s,
Kroncke served 14 months in a federal prison near Sandstone. His book was the
source material for the recent History Theatre production, Peace
Crimes.

Kroncke brought a sense of reality to the "virtual draft" in
Rauenhorst Hall in Coeur de Catherine. He pointed out that currently the U.S.
government solicits states for driver’s license records to amass data on 18-25
year–olds across the country.

Assigning draft numbers by birthdate,
Kroncke then spun the drum containing the numbers to pull audience members into
the “virtual draft.”

"Draftees" received a "greetings" packet with a
Report to Induction letter, a 1-A draft card and a To Do list that instructed
“draftees” to settle their debts, assign power of attorney and write a will,
among others.

Then, the "draftee" pulled a "What happened to you in the
war" true story from a basket to find out what happened.

“Ninety percent
of all soldiers going to war return home,” said Kroncke. “Not all the stories
end with the soldier dying.”

His objective was spur discussion, "If the
real Lottery were activated today, what would I do? Train to kill and risk being
killed? Resist and go to prison? Accept exile to a foreign country, never to
return to America?”

Kroncke believes that a public conversation about the
moral issues of war and peace is overdue and that an informed citizenry is
democracy’s best safeguard.

During the afternoon, he led discussions on
“The Rhetoric of War and Peace” and “The Sacrament of Civil Resistance,” as well
as a non-partisan peek behind the Peace Movement in light of the Republican
National Convention in St. Paul in September.

Kroncke earned a
baccalaureate degree from St. John’s and a masters from
the University of San Francisco and did doctoral work at UC Berkley and
the Graduate Theological Union. You can learn more about him at either www.minnesota8.net or www.pwh-mn.org.

The event was sponsored by
Campus Ministry with assistance from Student Senate, the Myser Initiative for
Catholic Identity, the Abigail Quigley McCarthy Center for Women, the Center of
Excellence for Women, Economic Justice, and Public Policy and the Sisters of St.
Joseph Justice Commission.

Contact Julie
Michener, (651) 690-6521

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