DEAR READERS: The “draft” is a dirty word for many Americans. But every New Year I like to share what’s on my mind — with hopes that it starts many conversations!
The last year we had a draft was 1973, when the Vietnam War ripped this nation apart. The young of this country went crazy with justified anger over having to fight — and probably die — in a senseless war. The draft was the prime mover in why our young were so passionate, so demanding of change, so actively participating as citizens. It was even the draft — hell no, we won’t go! — that ended the war.
Thirty-six years have passed and America has asked nothing of the 18- to 24-year-old crowd. Home life has changed, too. Very few children are required anymore to roll up their sleeves and apply elbow grease for the benefit of the family. Parents are busy, kids are overscheduled, many eat what they want, go to bed when they please, and most don’t know the first thing about handling tools, preparing a meal, even running a vacuum cleaner. We have become a nation of largely apathetic, mostly overweight youth who have few skills beyond running personal electronic devices.
Last New Year, I wrote “The Male Crisis” (JAN 2, 2008) and begged you to read Boys Adrift by Dr. Leonard Sax. I still beg you to read this book. It explains how boys have been “feminized” by our current educational system, ADHD drugs, video games, and plastics, resulting in an epidemic of lazy boys and lazy young men. I mention it again because when one-third of 22- to 34-year-old men still live with parents, and 14 percent of able-bodied, mostly college-educated men are not working — and not interested in working — we have a problem Houston.
When I hear America compared to the fall of Rome, I think back to Vietnam and wonder what would have happened if, instead of ending the draft, we had expanded it to include non-military service. (Youth were not just howling about the war. They were protesting many of the same social, political, and environmental problems that dropped Rome — all of which are worse today.) No one would’ve batted an eye. The draft was an acceptable part of life; people just didn’t want this particular war.
But, that didn’t happen. The draft was eliminated and youth were effectively amputated from public service. We “silenced the radicals” by not needing them. Whether this silencing sprang from Machiavellian design, or short-sightedness, not setting a place at the table for idealistic young adults is bad business for freedom.
I propose we bring youth back to the table by reinstating the draft. My vision is that youth could apply to military service — or to service in renewable energy, environmental restoration, disaster response, organic agriculture, transportation, urban renewal, education, after-school programs, drug and alcohol programs, suicide prevention, health care, infant care, elder care — all of which are crying for help.
While these needs are being served, apathy would fall away. Youth would gain real-life skills and become competent, self-directed, socially-involved adults (with no need to fake a British accent while traveling to avoid being called “dumb Americans”). At the end of their service, a GI Bill would launch them into the next phase of adulthood with debt-free education or low-interest mortgages or business loans — an essential foothold in these prohibitively expensive times.
That’s my vision. I thought the draft was a dirty word, too, until I realized how rejuvenating it would be, not only for the whole country, but for our young people, personally. For them to put sweat-equity into their homeland, to make it stronger and better, to be able to say, “I did that, I am part of America”, would be very powerful. And then to receive compensation designed to jump-start their adult lives… I only wish it was available right now for my own kids.
By Robert Almy, Connecticut on 01/08/2009
I was an anti-war activist, but a peace core/VISTA supporter. I have raised (or am raising) three children. I have been in public service and academic positions most of my professional career. My opinion is this:
IF this country was not engaging in immoral wars I would support a requirement for military service (such as has been established in Switzerland). IF this country developed a meaningful civil service/social service program (revamped VISTA etc.) I would support a requirement for civil service….2 years in each case.
However, any such program must have high standards for accomplishment, must be able to accommodate all levels of ability and contribution with respect and dignity, or it would be more harmful than no program at all.
By Coley, Pacific Grove, CA on 01/08/2009
Wow! Good article. You know as well as I do there is stuff out there to volunteer in but it takes the person to get up and go find it them selves…which is why you say a draft would be good…they would have no choice. Very cool. This will stir up folks…maybe even get rid of some of that apathy.
Have you thought of sending this to Obama??
By Heather Flatley, Carmel Valley CA on 01/08/2009
I am responding to your “Bringing Back the Draft” column. I have two sons, ages 19 and 21. To me the deepest problem is that parents are not parenting. They are not spending time with their kids, not monitoring time spent in front of the TV, computer, who their friends are, etc. Also it seems that to be a white male is politically incorrect. I read a statistic a few years ago that the demographic with the highest rate of suicide was white males between the ages of 15 and 25. I can absolutely see why, having just almost finished the teenage years with my sons. And I was a stay at home Mom, the whole time, and their Dad was (and is) always present in their lives, and is an excellent roll model, and those teenage years were still tough, but we hung in there, and our kids are on their way to becoming productive, working members of society. Drafting our young males will not solve the problems young men face. Dealing with the various problems you and Dr. Leonard Sax speak about start the day children are born, beginning with the parents being responsible, and not blaming schools or anyone else for how their kids are doing. Asking the government to start a draft program for military and non-military service is part of the problem – the kids are ignored their whole lives, then you want the government to step in and fix everything. Too many people these days are doing just that in other areas, just look at the whole mortgage mess. Some people weren’t qualified to be homeowners in the first place, now they want the government to rescue them. Again, this gets back to personal responsibility, which a lot of people don’t seem to have, or know about, or care about. So how about, instead of bringing back the draft, we bring back responsible parents who take personal responsibility for the raising of their boys, and who demand from the schools appropriate programs for their boys, and who PARENT and RAISE their boys, not just pop out the babies and say “see you later”.
By John Whitehouse, Greentown, PA on 01/08/2009
What a fantastic idea. I think this everyone should send this to their politicians with their own endorsement and suggestion that the draft be restored.
By Karl van Bronkhorst, Woodland, CA on 01/08/2009
I turned 19 in the Vietnamese central highlands in 1969. I have some things to say about the draft. Many people mistakenly credit the campus protests of that era with hastening the end of the war. The truth is more complex. Every young man is biologically inbred with a drive to defend hearth and home when it is threatened. To protect those you love even at the cost of your own life is inherent in what it means to really be a man. This has been lost in the general demeaning of the masculine in this current, feminized society. The desire to selflessly serve a cause greater than yourself in the context of some greater social imperative is one of the rungs on the ladder from self-importance to self-discipline. When leaders misrepresent a war as one of national emergency and mobilize this force in its young men, they run the risk of what happened in Vietnam; that is thousands of young, armed, angry young men in a situation that is not what was sold to them with no way to get home. It was dissent and breakdown of discipline in the face of a lack of defensible war aims, from within the ranks of the military, that led to the eventual end of that war. This is one of the reasons we Vietnam veterans were ostracized by our government, by design, on our return because we knew the truth and we needed to be discredited before damage could be done to the prevailing ruling mythos. The reason I bring this up is to point out that the real necessity of the draft is to have citizen-soldiers in the ranks of the military whenever the question of war comes up. In the face of a real threat to national security, real men will sign up in droves and will not wait for a draft (witness WW II). The dangers of an all volunteer army that has no reference to society at large are very real, and citizen-soldiers who would not otherwise be in the military are a necessary reality check that a mercenary army does not have.
I applaud your idea of mandatory service between the ages of 18-21. It does not have to military but the benefits are legion. To mention a few…..Identification with something larger than yourself;
working as a team towards common goals; a clean break from Mommy and Daddy whilst one passes through the “finding yourself” years; a return to your former life with new eyes, identity, and purpose; learning the hard lessons that come with submission to authority. These are lessons that are traditionally taught by the father ( husbandry means male nurturing ) but which have been lost as the ascending feminine, in its effort to redefine itself, puts down everything male. This is what gangs are all about, an attempt to recapture the male virtues in the context of a larger collective, only it becomes perverted into the weak predating on the helpless because there is no moral underpining to the collective goals in the first place. ( Gee, sounds like Vietnam in microcosm, doesn’t it ). If the citiizenry were shooting back at the gangs; if they had to face a real, motivated, and capable enemy they would be talking a different tune.
Boys learn by their mistakes, and by role models they can believe in because those role models have made the same mistakes themselves. Sometimes I think that boys and girls should be taught separately until about seventh grade, because the ways they learn are so different. But in general I’m saying that the transition from childhood to adulthood must involve some real life experience in placing collective goals over those of the individual, and in learning to be self-regulating rather than relying on external forces to provide behavioral limits. This is what men have to give to boys that women cannot.
I close with my favorite quote for ‘Rob Roy’, “Honor is the gift a man gives himself.”
By Richard Duval, Redding CA on 01/13/2009
This article over exaggerates and inaccurately exploits the fact that teens in this county are in fact lazy. I suggest we investigate the origins of this assumption, if one returns to the article itself where Lauren states “…many [kids] eat what they want, go to bed when they please, and most don’t know the first thing about handling tools, preparing a meal, even running a vacuum cleaner.” they will uncover the stereotype and a strict generalization of teens today. Personally I know very few people who display the traits described above. In my opinion the draft is another way for society to curb the growth of teen’s passion and force the crooked morals of society upon them at a young age. My opinion (stronger than ever) stands…Hell no I won’t go.
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