|
Iraq and the Draft
"I'm not sure what I would do if the draft were reinstated."
By Jonathan Simrin
I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the possibility of a new military draft. Just recently, President Bush announced he would extend soldiers’ tours of duty and increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. That makes a reinstatement of the draft seem more probable than ever.
The very word “draft” has a negative connotation for me. It immediately sparks memories of Vietnam and the tens of thousands of “our boys” who died in that conflict. I wasn’t alive then, but the repercussions of that war seem to be all around me. My mom often talks about how her family lived in constant fear that her brother would be drafted. Luckily, he never was, but it’s still difficult for me to grasp that fear my mom experienced. That’s my uncle she was talking about, and he was a mere teenager at the time.
So should today’s teenagers also live in fear of getting drafted? I’m sixteen years old, so I have to start facing the possibility of the draft. But I’m not sure what I would do if the draft were reinstated. Maybe I would apply for a student deferment. But some of the new draft proposals don’t make exceptions for students. There’s also the possibility of fleeing to Canada and leaving my family behind. I just don’t know what I would do, but I guess I should start to consider the options.
The draft is something I’ve never seriously discussed with my parents or my nineteen-year-old brother. After what my mother went through with my uncle, she probably never imagined my brother and I could face the same threat. But just like war itself, I guess the draft is something that’s never really behind us.
|
|
