Close the Door or You'll Let In a...

It's been a long-standing tradition in the United States for military recruiters to visit the homes of high school seniors, trying to convince them that the military is a good option for post-graduation life. In the post-9/11 world--especially after we've invaded Iraq--recruiters have been turning up the heat, making an ever-increasing effort to bring in new recruits.

You've just read the beginning of my post...and here is the rest of it.

When I graduated in 1990, it was a different world. Military budgets had been cut severely, and the United States hadn't been involved in a major, long-term war for many years. I can recall the Navy recruiting officer who came to my home and sat down at our kitchen table, trying to recruit me into submarine duty. When I told him I really wasn't all that interested in submarine duty, he complimented my math scores on the SAT and proceeded to extol to me the many benefits of training to be (and serving as) a nuclear engineer.

I remember looking back at him with a smirk and saying, “I really don't have any desire to be placed in a metal tube, deep underneath the ocean, with a nuclear reactor.”

He assured me that we were in a post-cold-war world now, and that the threat of war or military conflict was next to none. What I told him next stands out clearly in my mind, both because of his reaction and because of the prophetic nature of my words.

Looking him straight in the eyes, I said, “There are nations in this world--in the Middle East, particularly--who absolutely hate the United States of America. They call us The Great Satan. They burn our flag in the streets and vow to bring about our destruction. You might want me to believe this is a peaceful world--you might even believe it yourself--but one of these days, one of those nations is going to attack us, and when that happens I don't want to be sealed up in a submarine with a nuclear reactor and no means of escape.”

The Navy recruiter's jaw went slack, he blinked, then he lowered his eyes toward the table. After a few seconds of silence, he brought his eyes back up to mine and said, “I'm not going to be able to convince you, am I?”

He was nothing if not observant, I'll give him that.

I don't think it was present in most young people of my generation as we graduated from high school, but I had a definite awareness that our nation was vulnerable to attack from Middle Eastern nations and terrorist organizations. I had the misconception (as many Americans did) that, if our nation did go to war, the full-time active duty soldiers would do the fighting while most of our reserve units and national guard units remained in the homeland.

For this reason, I allowed myself to be recruited into the U. S. Army Reserves.

As I said earlier, things were different back then. Every branch of our military was suffering from heavy budget cuts, and new recruits (myself included) were told going in that if, for any reason, we changed our minds prior to basic training, all we had to do was call our recruiting officer and we would be given an honorable discharge--no questions asked.

I went through a two-day prep-training camp, which was supposed to help new recruits prepare mentally and physically for basic training. On the morning that I was supposed to ship out for basic, my recruiting officer called me at home, saying that there had been a mistake during my in-processing. Somebody at MEPS had forgotten to draw my blood for one of the tests. Rather than ship out for basic, I was to drive to the Kansas City MEPS station, where I was to meet with my Army career counselor, then get my blood drawn.

When I sat down with the counselor, I told him, “I'm enrolled for college starting in August. How soon will I be leaving for basic?”

He told me that, since I'd missed the ship date for the current cycle of recruits, I'd have to wait two more months. I said, “Sorry, but I'm going to have to back out. The main reason I enlisted to begin with was so that I could get the G. I. Bill for college, and now you're telling me that I'll have to skip my first semester so that I can go to basic training. That just doesn't work for me.”

We signed some forms, I was given an honorable discharge, and approximately two months later, President George H. W. Bush invaded Iraq. My Army Reserve unit--a transport team based in Emporia, Kansas--was one of the first ones to be deployed.

Granted, I would have been in basic at the time of their deployment, but still it was too close for my liking, and I found myself thanking my lucky stars that I now had an honorable discharge and that, if a draft were instated, I would be excluded. Of course, no draft was needed for The Gulf War, but none of us knew that at the time.

This new war in Iraq...now that's a different story, entirely. We've already lost more American troops in Iraq than in the first three years of the Viet Nam War, combined. Losses, troop morale, and recruiting levels are all so bad right now that the Bush administration has instituted what they call a “stop loss policy,” which is a back-door draft, not allowing soldiers to leave the military even though their service enlistment time has expired.

President Bush has promised, repeatedly, that no draft will be used as long as he is in office, yet he continues to say that he is in Iraq to win, and that our troops will remain in Iraq, fighting, until the war is won.

He can't have it both ways.

Every month that the United States continues to occupy the nation of Iraq, our troops suffer more casualties than the previous month. If this rate of fatality continues, and if he refuses to pull our troops out of Iraq and bring them home, President Bush will have no other option; he will have to institute a military draft.

Even John Kerry, if elected President, will have a difficult time not instituting a draft. However, Kerry's chances will be much better than those of Bush, because Kerry plans to withdraw our troops from Iraq more quickly than Bush does. I'm not a military expert, but I do understand history, and I do understand the nature of war. Regardless of who wins the Presidency (Bush or Kerry), despite the lies they have been telling us in order to win our votes, chances are frighteningly high that the United States of America will soon see our first military draft since Viet Nam.

I have a seventeen-year-old nephew, who is currently living with my sister and her husband overseas. My nephew is a U. S. Citizen, and he is old enough to be drafted. In the event that a draft is instituted, I hope that he will find a way to slip through the cracks. I know that many wouldn't consider that a very patriotic thing to say, but I don't consider it a very patriotic (much less humane) thing for a President to sacrifice our young men and women's lives, invading a sovereign nation and slaughtering innocent civilians for nothing more than oil profit.

To hell with oil and gas prices. Let the pump prices in the U. S. Jump to five or six dollars a gallon. I (and most other Americans) would pay the higher prices...just stop the killing.

Bring our soldiers home, and stop the violence.