• Twitter
  • Facebook
News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Volunteers

A veteran of the Iraq war calls for a return of the draft:

A deferment draft, however, is a different story, and ultimately counterproductive because of the acrimony it breeds. By allowing the fortunate and, often, most talented to stay home, those who are drafted feel less important than what they are asked to die for. At the end of the day, it was this bitterness that helped fuel the massive antiwar movement that pushed Nixon to end the draft in

Comments

Doug
Thu, 08/30/2007 - 2:50pm

I don't know what a draft does to the military itself, and that's probably my greatest reason for hesitation. But, there is a lot to be said for the idea that a draft prevents the country from going to war in all but the most urgent of situations and hastens the country in extracting itself from foolish wars.

Leo Morris
Thu, 08/30/2007 - 3:29pm

That would especially be true if women were included in the draft, which, in today's climate, is something we probably can't avoid.

alex
Thu, 08/30/2007 - 7:16pm

One loophole will always remain. Here's betting a new universal draft will send the percentage of avowed homosexuals in this country skyrocketing into the stratosphere. The gay left would refer to them as HINOs. Or maybe GINOs?

tim zank
Thu, 08/30/2007 - 9:29pm

We don't need a draft, we need good pay and benefits that actually work. Pay them right to make it a career, and re-vamp the V.A. so it actually works for the wounded and sick. There are an enormous amount of young people that would serve their country if they could actually make a good living doing it.

A J Bogle
Fri, 08/31/2007 - 7:22am

A rare moment of agreement Tim

On the other hand Doug has a valid point without the "shared sacrifice" of a draft and the direct connection for more people to the risks there is little deterence to getting into more and more foreign interventionist misadventures.

Quantcast