I agree with you in that it was not the threat we were indoctrinated to believe. However, it was much more of a threat to us than Iraq is today, which would be the reason for a modern day draft. Communism was an ideology that had a superpower as strong as us pushing it. On top of that, it was a competing interest against us at the time. Saddam's only ally was himself. There is no legitimate competing interest in Iraq. On a side note, while it is true that 50,000 died in Vietnam, only a small number died in the first 3 years of the war. If Iraq continues, it may produce Vietnam-type casualty numbers.
Even if there is a draft I very much doubt the children of the rich and powerful will come anywhere close to seeing any real action (e.g GWB). You can be assured they will find ways to dodge it or find cushy positions in the rear.
Mandatory military service is an incredibly stupid and short sighted idea. Our national government already has way too much power. The last century should have taught us that strong centralized governments are bad. Our media is run by a few corporations. Our public schools system is being run more and more from washington. And now mandatory military service is being proposed. What a great way to indoctrinate the populous.
Groups Unite Against Military Recruiters Nancy Carroll didn't know schools were giving military recruiters her family's contact information until a recruiter called her 17-year-old granddaughter. That didn't sit well with Carroll, who believes recruiters unfairly target minority students. So she joined activists across the country who are urging families to notify schools that they don't want their children's contact information given out. "People of color who go into the military are put on the front line," said the 67-year-old Carroll, who is black. A provision of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act requires school districts to provide military recruiters with student phone numbers and addresses or risk losing millions in federal education funding. Parents or students 18 and over can "opt out" by submitting a written request to keep the information private. But critics say schools do not always convey that message. In New Mexico, the American Civil Liberties Union chapter sued the Albuquerque Public School District last month, charging it does not adequately inform parents of the opt-out provision. Some critics oppose the federal law on privacy grounds, but others say it provides an unfair opportunity for the military to sway young minds — especially in economically depressed communities. "They're not going to all the schools. They're going to the schools where they figure the kids will have less chance to go to college," said Rep. Jim McDermott (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash. "It's an insidious kind of draft, quite frankly." Carroll, who is raising three grandchildren in a working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia, agrees that the practice is unfair. "I wouldn't want them to join," she said of her grandchildren. But Pentagon officials say the military deserves the same access to students that schools give to colleges and employers. "In the past, it was all-too-common for a school district to make student directory information readily available to vendors, prospective employers and post-secondary institutions while intentionally excluding the services," Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. "Having access to 17- to 24-year-olds is very key to us," said Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, commander of the Army Recruiting Command, said at a news conference Friday at Fort Meade, Md. "We would hope that every high school administrator would provide those lists to us. They're terribly important for what we're trying to do." Asked about aggressive recruiters targeting young people, he said: "I would certainly hope that we are harassing no one. A recruiter today has to contact roughly 100 people before they can generally get one of them to sit down and listen to the Army story. ... I'm not asking my recruiters to be any less aggressive. I would not wish for them to be overbearing or annoying." As military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are having trouble attracting recruits to their reserve forces, though only the Army is falling short in attracting people for its active-duty ranks. Andrew Rinaldi, a senior at Edison High School in Edison, N.J., filed an opt-out letter but said he was contacted by a recruiter anyway. He said the recruiter mocked his pacifist views. "They're becoming more aggressive," he said. None of the nation's approximately 22,600 high schools has failed to comply with the military provision of No Child Left Behind, and just one is "finalizing its compliance," Krenke said. None has lost funding. Before No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2002, about 12 percent of the nation's schools refused to turn over student records to military recruiters, Pentagon officials said. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who sponsored the recruitment provision, called the actions of those schools "offensive." Now, activists are holding rallies and awareness campaigns to make sure students know they can opt out. In Montclair, N.J., more than 80 percent of Montclair High School students have opted out since a student-led effort began last year. "It's a place where military recruiters are not likely to have a ton of success, anyway, partly because ... a lot of parents can assist their kids with going to college," school district spokeswoman Laura Federico said. In the urban blight of North Philadelphia, Joshua Gordy said the lure of college money led him to join the Army reserves at age 17. He said recruiters at his high school told him he could earn $35,000 for college. That hasn't happened. Gordy, a 20-year-old reservist, said he apparently failed to send in the right paperwork in time. He hopes to enroll in community college this fall. Rep. McDermott faults the military for enticing students with talk of patriotism, adventure and college funds, instead of giving them a realistic view of combat. McDermott is among those in Congress trying to change the law so that students instead "opt-in" for recruitment. "There's nothing dishonorable with serving in the military," said McDermott, a psychiatrist who served stateside during Vietnam. "But it ought to be done with your eyes open." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050617...CbCLiNH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
Someone Else's Child By BOB HERBERT It has become clearer than ever that Americans do not want to fight George W. Bush's tragically misguided war in Iraq. You can still find plenty of folks arguing that we have to stay the course, or even raise the stakes by sending more troops to the war zone. But from the very start of this war the loudest of the flag-waving hawks were those who were safely beyond military age themselves and were unwilling to send their own children off to fight. It's easy to be macho when you have nothing at risk. The hawks want the war to be fought with other people's children, while their own children go safely off to college, or to the mall. The number of influential American officials who have children in uniform in Iraq is minuscule. Most Americans want no part of Mr. Bush's war, which is why Army recruiters are failing so miserably at meeting their monthly enlistment quotas. Desperate, the Army is lowering its standards, shortening tours, increasing bonuses and violating its own recruitment regulations and ethical guidelines. Americans do not want to fight this war. Times Square in Midtown Manhattan is the most heavily traveled intersection in the country. It was mobbed on V-E Day in May 1945 and was the scene of Alfred Eisenstaedt's legendary photo of a sailor passionately kissing a nurse on V-J Day the following August. There is currently an armed forces recruiting station in Times Square, but it's a pretty lonely outpost. An officer on duty one afternoon last week said no one had come in all day. Vince Morrow, a 10th grader from Allentown, Pa., was interviewed across the street from the recruiting station, on Broadway. He said he had once planned to join the military after graduating from high school, but had changed his mind. "It's the war," he said. "Going over and never coming back. Before the war you'd just go to different places and help people. Now you go over there and you fight." His mother, Michelle, said: "I'd like to see him around awhile. It was different before the war. It's the fear of not coming home. Our other son just graduated Saturday and he was planning to go into the Air Force. They told him college was included and made him all kinds of promises. They almost made him sign papers before we had decided. We thought about it and researched it and decided against it." Last week's New York Times/CBS News Poll found that the mounting casualties and continuing turmoil in Iraq have made Americans increasingly pessimistic about the war. A majority said the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq and only 37 percent approved of the president's handling of the war. What hasn't changed is the fact that the vast majority of the parents who support the war do not want their children to fight it. A woman in the affluent New York suburb of Ridgewood, N.J., who has a daughter in high school and a younger son, said: "I would not want my children to go. If there wasn't a war it would be different. I support the war and I think we need to be there. But it's not going well. It's becoming like Vietnam. It's a very bad situation. But we can't leave." I don't know how you win a war that your country doesn't want to fight. We sent too few troops into Iraq in the first place and the number of warm bodies available for Iraq and other military missions going forward is dwindling alarmingly. The Bush crowd may be bellicose, but for most Americans the biggest contribution to the war effort is a bumper sticker that says "support our troops," and maybe a belligerent call to a talk radio station. The home-front "warriors" who find it so easy to give the thumbs up to war endanger the truly valorous men and women who are actually willing to put on a uniform, pick up a weapon and place their lives on the line. The president and these home-front warriors got us into this war and now they don't know how to get us out. Nor do they have a satisfactory answer to the important ethical question: how do you justify sending other people's children off to fight while keeping a cloak of protection around your own kids? If the United States had a draft (for which there is no political sentiment), its warriors would be drawn from a much wider swath of the population, and political leaders would think much longer and harder before committing the country to war. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/20/opinion/20herbert.html
are they kidding? Sitting in a recruiting office and going to a few high schools sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me...
We're not talking about a draft...it is a mandetory requirement in peace or war time. Draft implies it is only a wartime requirement. A two year military requirement stint after high school is a great idea. I support it whole heartedly. Those of you claiming it is unjust or unfair claiming you have some sort of right NOT to serve in the military don't understand that America GAVE YOU THE RIGHT to say that. America gives you rights and you must fight for them. I'm nearly positive we wouldn't have engaged in the Iraq war if more American had skin in the game (ei...their sons and daughters). This practice of heavily recruiting in poor neighborhoods allows middle-class America to be too comfortable.
Actually, military recruiters are financially incentivized to meet their quotas. IE...if you don't make quota...you lose money. Also, the recruiters can be demoted for regularly not meeting quota. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a crappy job to me.
A crappy job is going to Iraq for 20K a year for an indefinite time period with the chance of coming back in a body bag.
