Caught in the backdoor draft

by David Grand
November 4, 2004

No, I wasn't. For women and children would surely be before calling up this old tanker. But my 45-year-old second son was last month, who is now serving in Iraq with the Special Forces. As a lieutenant in an Army reserve unit, he was needless to say thunderstruck when notified he had been called up for a tour of duty in that godforsaken place for however long.       

That he had previously served for four years with a covert, counter-terrorists unit, returning home with a chest full of medals, apparently counted for naught when the Army snared him in its net, perhaps because of his specialized skills and broad experience.        

But we had a good laugh when he said he'd bought a tee shirt with the following words printed on it in bold letters, "DON'T SHOOT-I'M CLOSE TO BEING A SENIOR CITIZEN." And I'm sure many guardsmen and reservists in his age bracket, who comprise 40 percent of those now serving in Iraq, will get a belly laugh out of it, too.      

To me, however, my son having to don his battle gear for the second time is no laughing matter, and only reinforces my conviction of the need for reinstating the draft in the name of shared sacrifice, where the sacrifices of war are borne equally by all segments of society. For as we all know from past wars, the fighting and dying has fallen mainly upon working class kids, with the children of affluent Americans able to avoid the draft through college deferments and other escape routes.       

And even though the possible necessity of a draft was a taboo subject in the presidential campaign, there are undeniable factors at play that many military leaders have come to believe it is the only viable option available for meeting our present and possible future military commitments. For instance:

• If a conflict with Iran, Syria or North Korea were to suddenly erupt, our fighting forces, which are already strained to the breaking point, would be hard pressed to win a preemptive, full-scale ground war in those counties, short of resorting to nuclear warfare.  
• All the Army's combat brigades have been dispatched to war zones over the last two years; some having gone twice.
• The Army National Guard reported that for the first time in a decade it fell 15 percent short of its annual goal for recruits.
• The pool of young kids who have committed in 2004 to join the Army next year (induced by higher salaries and benefits and offering generous bonuses) is only 18 percent of the total required of what the Army likes to have readily available.  
• Roughly a third of the Army's 3,900 Ready Reservists mobilized for combat resisted the call-up.
• In an effort to keep bodies in uniform and on the front lines, the Pentagon has issues "stop loss" orders that have prevented thousands of soldiers at the end of their enlistments from leaving if their units are bound for Iraq, as well as prolonging rotations.         

I think Anna Quindlen best summed up the likelihood of a draft in a Newsweek article: "For the young people who feel a shiver down their spine at the prospect of being drafted and the older people who love them, it's as likely that the draft will be reinstated by this president as it is he'll make Richard Clarke his Secretary of Defense." Adding, that were he to, "he'd alienate key elements of his political base, as well as freak out the public."       

The simple question I would ask is, would most Americans support staying in Iraq if their sons were obliged to go there in the name of patriotism? Their answer no doubt would be a loud Hell no!