Young male dopers! Eyes front! Chest Out!
Re this Salon article
Oiling up the draft machine?
The Pentagon is quietly moving to fill draft board vacancies nationwide. While officials say there’s no cause to worry, some experts aren’t so sure.
If a draft is re-instituted will you serve?
Hmm.
<wheeze>
Nope, no serving for me. In the event of a draft, I renounce my atheism and thank God for the physical disabilities that He has given me.
My understanding of the draft (and I believe it to be a very correct one) is that service is compulsory once drafted. So were anyone to be drafted they are legally required to serve.
I imagine you’re asking “Would you dodge the draft?” and my answer is “No, I’m not a republican.”
I’d steal Gunslinger and run to Canada. I really would. I’d probably have his family’s blessing in doing it.
Well, I am a healthy 20 year old male, which makes me a prime canidate for being drafted. Of course, I am already in ROTC, so a draft wouldn’t effect me in the slightest.
Well, I turn 18 in December, and if the draft were brought back, I know that I would dodge it.
It depends.
If they reinstated a draft primarily because of the Iraq situation, and I was drafted, I would probably publically burn the draft notice and serve a term in prison. If I was drafted primarily for a war which I felt strongly in support of, I would probably publically burn the draft notice and then immediately enlist.
Don’t be so hard on our Republican leaders. It must be hell to contemplate having to ask young men to put themselves in harm’s way, knowing that you yourself dodged the draft any way you could when YOU were of age.
Yep, the draft is gonna occur.
Right after we pass the ERA.
Whistlepig
If the draft were reinstated, I’d start furiously brushing up on my Canadian.
Eek! I just felt something brush up against me!
I just read that article. And I’d fight it all the way and brush up on my Molsen and hockey. I’m not dying in some hellhole for G.W. Bush’s war.
The Army is so technologically advanced now. There is no way that anyone can be drafted (i.e. Here’s a gun, kid, shoot some bastards) in the way people were during WWII and Vietnam. Draft-pushing politicians are looking for votes. It won’t happen. All you young’uns are in no danger. Don’t worry. If this “WAR” on terrorism requires a draft, the political viability of the current administration will tank in no time flat. It’s all good.
There will be no draft. The military is very, very aware of the advantages of a highly trained, specialized, volunteer army. It would take something the scale of the Second World War or an invasion of mainland US soil for the US government to re-institute conscription.
With something like 52% of the population of the US unhappy with the way the Bush administration’s been handling post-war Iraq, Shrub would be committing political suicide to reinstitute the draft.
Of course, I’m an old geezer (I turn 35 this month), so I’m exempt from the draft, not to mention I’m a student and I work for a company that supplies components for various defense contractors, so even if Bush were to decide that he was going to be a “Jimmy Carter” and reinstate the draft, I’ve got plenty of “outs” to avoid the draft. (However, were we in a WW II situation, I’d find a way to serve in the military damned fast.)
Years ago I was travelling on an overnight train sharing a compartment with a soldier. We got talking and I said I’d hate to be in his position if a war ever broke out. He replied that he’d rather be in his position than mine, “I can train hundreds of civilians how to use the equipment and they can ship you all overseas. I’m too valuable, I know how everything works.” It would have been pretty funny if he’d been joking.
“Join the Mobile Infantry and save the Galaxy. Service guarantees citizenship. The only good Bug is a dead Bug. We’ll keep fighting— and we’ll win! Would you like to know more?”
What’s draft age, anyway? 18 to 25?
I believe that since my fiance’s 26, he’d be too old to be drafted by the time something like this passed, if he isn’t already. My brother’s 29, so the same thing there. If the ERA were to be passed–and, seeing as I don’t think it’s been resurrected, that’s probably unlikely–I can honestly claim conscientious objector status, and so can my younger sister.
My dad spent an hour last year convincing me that the draft was coming back, and that my fiance would likely be drafted. My dad’s a dick and was trying to scare me, as I found out from a massive online search.
I don’t think the draft’ll be coming back unless something way major–think something on the same scale as September 11th, except officially backed by a government with some military might–were to happen. And, honestly, I don’t see that happening; the US has an annoying habit of either winning or severely injuring opposing contries or armies (didn’t win Vietnam, but the war lasted so long that the country was totally ravaged).
Incidentally, here is the website for the Selective Service, which gives a lot of information. According to that, Joe K, the draft is ages 18-25.