Heck no, he won’t go
To the editor,
Re: reviving the draft? [“First Draft: The battle to create universal national
service has just started. Here’s how it can be won.” by Paul Glastris,
March 6.]
What are you guys, nuts or something? Now I don’t know what kind of dipstick Mr. Glastris is, but this is the kind of behavior that has earned baby boomers the justified title of the loopiest generation.
As old General Ike used to say, let’s look at the record. Having smoked, snorted, shot, and snarfed every conceivable drug on the planet, we have imposed a “no tolerance, no rights, no privacy” policy on the country, doing untold harm to our tradition of civil rights and consigning a large part of our population to gulags. Having spent our youth preaching free love, we’ve now decided abstinence is proper behavior, cajoling young people into the Junior Anti-Sex League.
But now the “hell no, I won’t go” draft-card-burning crowd wants to revive the draftPlease, what is this? Drug-addled nostalgia?
In the good old USA, the draft in any warCivil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnamhas been unfair and fallen disproportionately on the poor. The rich and privileged evade the draft for the same reason they evade taxesnamely, they’re rich and privileged. And let me share a dark little secret of democracy with youyou ain’t gonna get a law that makes ’em go.
Additionally your basic, poorly trained, and poorly motivated draftee is about as useless on the battlefield as tits on a boar. According to government studies at least 50 percent of the men on the front lines in WWII did not fire their weapons. On today’s electronic battle field, canon fodder is simply a casualty waiting to happen, with the added drawback that you have to feed them until they’re dead.
But as long as we’re airing lunatic proposals I want to make one of my own. Why pick on youth? If this is a good idea, let’s start at age 60 and work backward. Everyone who hid out in college during Vietnam, including Cousin Bill Clinton, let’s go right nowgive me two yearsno exceptions, no excuses. Let’s see how popular that idea is.
And just to show I’m no piker, anyone who advocates military action any time, anywhere should be issued helmet, rifle, and ammo belt and be given free transportation to the front, courtesy of a grateful republic.
See you in the trenches.
John Brazaitis
Virginia
This article appears in May 8-14, 2003.
