Imagine this: It’s the year 1973 and you’re fresh out of high school. One night, you sit down with your family to watch your favorite television program just to find it being interrupted by a government official reading out a list of randomly selected birthdays. Yours is one of them. For a moment, you’re whole world stops as it takes a few moments to hit you as to what exactly this all means. Within a few seconds, your life has suddenly been completely altered, placed in the hands of government officials sending you off to war without your consent.
Now, imagine it being more than thirty years later and the possibility that it could happen again. Imagine that, as long as you’re able minded and able bodied, you have none of the ways out that were once available to people during the Vietnam War. College will no longer keep you out of battle; neither will female reproductive organs.
It might happen.
Currently, government officials and representatives of the United States armed forces are presenting a proposal to reinstate the draft. With military recruitment lowering rapidly, those people in charge search for ways to find people to fulfill the requirements that our president has placed – hundreds of thousands of soldiers will remain in Iraq at least until the end of 2005. Add in other military actions being taken in other countries, our armed forces have stretched themselves too thinly and they need more soldiers. Right now, they’re not allowing those who’ve fulfilled their contracts to leave after the end of their service, forcing them to continue service that they hadn’t agreed to, while taking away the leave time of newer, younger soldiers as they refuse to allow them to go back to the comforts of home for even just a few weeks.
Starting way before the war in Iraq ever began, senators and government officials were placing the draft (or conscription) back on the table, causing a few journalists who found out about it to speculate what it could all mean, while most of the American public remained unaware. As the war continues and the number of military recruitments drop at the same time the government is issuing long term plans to stay in a foreign country, the idea of the draft is gaining more support from those supporting the war though still mostly being kept away from the mass media. Military officials claim that morale is dropping within the troops already stationed in Iraq, leading them to believe that if more soldiers were available to allow them temporary break from service as well as more support in battle, morale would boost again. With an upcoming election, however, it’s unlikely that anything will happen until the beginning of next year.
The draft works as so: When new troops are needed, a government approved branch of the military pulls a select group of people at random (either through their birthdays or through “draft numbers” given out previously), who are then required to show up for active duty within a given amount of days. Only those who fall under the age of 18 to 25 are open to being drafted at the moment. Previously being a college student kept you out of the draft, but with the rising number of young adults going on to further education, that clause is being considered for removal as well as the clause saying that only males should be drafted. Within the equal rights argument, many are fighting to have female conscription become part of the draft.
Essentially, a reinstatement of the draft would most affect those in high school and college right now, including those who still have two or three years to go before reaching their eighteenth birthdays. The draft is not an issue to be ignored or brushed aside until it reaches more of a concrete advancement. Knowing what might be coming around the corner is the best way to remain informed and allow the possibility to fight back, preventing it from ever going through the government. Unless you’re willing to fight a war you didn’t volunteer for and that might only end up benefiting the rich and power in the end, pay attention to what’s going on within the reinstatement of the draft issue, so you know whether or not your life might be soon on the line.
by: Leslie Flynn
