I Hate War
I think that a mandatory draft should be instituted, with the draftees doing things like public works projects during peacetime. Right now, few of us really feel responsible or personally touched by the wars that we're fighting, or the thousands of corpses that keep piling up on both sides. But if every family had a personal stake in it - if everyone's sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews were the ones who had to throw themselves on the meat grinder when we and our leaders choose to wage war - then I think that the wars would end.
Vietnam was going on for well over a decade, with our soldiers killing and dying by the literal millions, and all the while there were no meaningful protests in America. No one cared, except for a handful that could be easily ignored. A lot of people complained, but there was no real fight behind the complaints. We had sent in our specialists - our volunteers - and thereby washed our hands of any responsibility for it.
But the second that the draft happened - the second that people started getting sent over there who hadn't volunteered, protests started up on a level that had never existed before in the history of our nation. Protests that shook the very foundation of how we view and trust (and mistrust) our government. And within a few years, a war that had dragged on for decades came to an end. Politicians recognized that they wouldn't get elected (or re-elected) unless they took a very different stance on the war.
And now here we are, with our soldiers still in the middle east after well over a decade. We've pulled out of some places, gone into others - but the wars go on and on, with no end in sight. They don't even bother to talk about it in the news anymore, it's become so commonplace. No one cares. People complain, but there's no real fight behind the complaints. And my greatest fear is that this time, no draft will ever happen. Nothing will force us to turn away from this fight against our latest bugbear - this generation's communism - and the corpses that that fight will bring.
Vietnam was going on for well over a decade, with our soldiers killing and dying by the literal millions, and all the while there were no meaningful protests in America. No one cared, except for a handful that could be easily ignored. A lot of people complained, but there was no real fight behind the complaints. We had sent in our specialists - our volunteers - and thereby washed our hands of any responsibility for it.
But the second that the draft happened - the second that people started getting sent over there who hadn't volunteered, protests started up on a level that had never existed before in the history of our nation. Protests that shook the very foundation of how we view and trust (and mistrust) our government. And within a few years, a war that had dragged on for decades came to an end. Politicians recognized that they wouldn't get elected (or re-elected) unless they took a very different stance on the war.
And now here we are, with our soldiers still in the middle east after well over a decade. We've pulled out of some places, gone into others - but the wars go on and on, with no end in sight. They don't even bother to talk about it in the news anymore, it's become so commonplace. No one cares. People complain, but there's no real fight behind the complaints. And my greatest fear is that this time, no draft will ever happen. Nothing will force us to turn away from this fight against our latest bugbear - this generation's communism - and the corpses that that fight will bring.
