Dreading the return of a draft

[thedrifter]

Point of View:
Published: Oct 17, 2006 12:30 AM
Modified: Oct 17, 2006 03:10 AM

Dreading the return of a draft

Lisa Bellamy, Correspondent

RALEIGH - You can't get blood from a turnip," was my mother's way of saying that some things are an exercise in futility. I got to thinking about that while sitting in the Greyhound bus station on Raleigh's West Jones Street the other day.

I was surrounded by baby-faced Marines in uniform carrying overstuffed duffels. White, African-American, Latino Marines -- all waiting their turn at the pay phone, dozing with hats on one knee or standing wordlessly waiting for the bus to Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune

These young men, their 26-inch waists cinched into Uncle Sam's dress greens, are America's future fighting force. We will send them in increasing numbers to the global War on Terror, if it continues. It shows no sign of letting up. President Bush has assured us that we are in this for the long haul. The Army alone says it needs 60,000 more troops to maintain readiness for duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and heaven knows where else it might be called.

Where will the soldiers come from? Military recruitment has been a hard struggle, although the Armed Forces met their goals this year. The military has held hostage volunteer soldiers who were due to retire. National Guard weekend warriors have been shipped overseas for extended and re-extended stays. How long can that continue? Until somebody has the courage to utter the deplorable five-letter word: draft.

That word has meaning for me. The draft sent to Southeast Asia many of my sister's high school friends in the Class of 1969, boys much like those at the bus station. Many returned home in body bags. I stood recently at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington until I found the name of one of those friends. Then I thought of the new war and of my own friends and relatives.

I have a nephew in college and a friend with five college-age sons. How long before they, and thousands like them, are no longer encouraged to serve but required to do so?

The Selective Service System still exists as a backup to the volunteer military. Its mission is "to serve the emergency manpower needs of the Military by conscripting untrained manpower." Federal law still mandates that all male U.S. citizens and aliens ages18 to 25 register with the service. All that's needed to reinstate the draft is a directive from Congress or the president.

Until the bus station, the war was only an occasional news tribute to fallen soldiers (nearing 3,000), a stray quote from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comparing war critics to fascists, or President Bush saying the war is promoting American security. I dismissed it as made-for-TV drama.

The real war is about people putting their lives on the line. I understand that. I came of age in the shadow of Fort Benning, Ga., Home of the Infantry. I trade e-mail with my niece while she does Air Force duty rotation in Afghanistan. One brother-in-law did three tours of Vietnam and served in Desert Storm before retiring to teach Army ROTC at a Florida high school. My maternal grandfather served in World War I, the War to End All Wars.

I'm a patriot, but also a realist. The days of the volunteer soldier are numbered. While the line of young Marines at Greyhound was long, it's getting harder to find people to fight terror. Someday soon our sons, nephews and big brothers could be selected for service.

Terrorists seem willing to throw men, women and children at us for as long as it takes. The War on Terror finally may come down to this: being prepared to send more of our sons to their deaths than they are. "Winning" a war like that seems like trying to get blood from a turnip.

(Lisa Bellamy, a former N&O assistant metro editor, is a free-lance writer who lives and works in the Triangle.)

Ellie

[narc]

with less than one percent of the population serving there country, i think the draft is a good idea. instead of gangs or doing nothing or working at a fast food joint they can learn a trade, and maybe learn what it means to be an american. our military cost would go up but maybe our welfare cost would go down.

[DESwiger]

How about this. Allow the healthy and fittest of our previously served come back to learn, teach and protect. Raving of the old, no, just one of many who choose to believe in the American way no matter the cost.
I did and still do promise "ALWAYS Faithful"!