I watched the Movie "Hair" again last night

[NGinpa]

We starve-look
At one another
Short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation
Of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes

I have seen this movie and play before, but not for a long time. When it was over, I felt like a ton of bricks had hit me, and I was sad. It brought back so many personal feelings that I have not really felt or thought about in a while, but when they did come back against the current background of the Iraq war, well it just made me feel empty and sad. Are we (America) just traveling in a circle learning nothing, or is the social circumstance so different without a forced draft that even if we have learned, the majority does not care! What does that say about us??

I remember when I was in high school in the mid 1960s, I still thought the US only fought wars when our survival was at stake. One day, some older cousins of mine and their friends were talking about Vietnam and how arbitrary and unfair the war was. They talked of going to Canada instead of Vietnam if they were drafted.

Well that set the stage for the next 6 years of my life with respect to going to college and staying out of Vietnam. I can remember about December 1969 sitting in my dorm room with many others listening to the radio as the First Draft Lottery took place to help us determine the next few years of our lives. What would folks do if their number was low?? By now, most folks knew the fallacy of this country's reasoning behind Vietnam and the likelihood that everyone killed and maimed over there was for nothing. If your number was high, how high was enough? What about in the middle. My number was pretty high in the 300s so I thought I might be okay, but there were so many others being inflicted with such unknown pain over the next few months. The anti-war movement indeed had many recruits from then on with or without Kent State.

Okay so back to the movie "Hair". This country seems to be doing it again, and the fact that there is a volunteer military seems to be giving the Hawks a pass on the national upheavals caused by the Vietnam involvement. No wonder the Hawks do not want a draft, but why are so many young Americans so eager for the slaughter. Where are all the baby boomer parents that revolted against Vietnam? Why don't they counsel these young people, or have they all forgotten?? Maybe there were not that many, but it sure seemed like a lot back then! Maybe they just think Iraq IS a needed war, but that is quite easy to think when your loved ones are not at any risk, now isn't it!

What would have the situation been like now if we still had a draft? How many more American wars of fortune will there be in the future and how many hapless or confused American youths will be sacrificed? Could a fair draft make the subject matter in the movie "Hair" a one-time phenomenon, or at least would a draft act like a filter to make sure any war we do contemplate is truly warranted? Yes the plot in "Hair" was fiction, but it does accurately depict many of the conflicted mindsets that took place during those difficult years. When America gave up the mandatory draft, what else did it give up??

[Cleita]

1. The draft did make a difference. Back then Democrats and

most rank and file Republicans were on the same page as far as ending the war was concerned. I remember being side by side with anti-war Republicans at anti-war protests.

[Warpy]

3. How long had the war gone on by that time? How many dead?

The volunteer army has prevented Stupid from going off half cocked and invading Iran or Syria or both. The Pentagon has simply told him there are not sufficient forces to do either. Because there is a madman in the White House, enlistment is down. This is how it is supposed to work.

There should never, ever be a draft in peacetime, ever again. Unlimited access to young men burns a hole in the Pentagon's pocket and they have a nasty habit of finding places to send them to die.

Clearly, the Pentagon's mission needs to be redefined. We can no longer support an organization that has devolved into a welfare office for arms contractors. We can no longer afford a bloated bureaucracy that breeds cadres of paranoid men who lie us into foreign wars of corporate convenience.

Too many people seem to have forgotten why we got rid of the peacetime draft. How many of their children will they have to bury before they remember?

[NGinpa]

4. Cause and effect--Chicken or the egg??

Too many people seem to have forgotten why we got rid of the peacetime draft. How many of their children will they have to bury before they remember?

Without a draft (hopefully a fair draft), it is easy for voters to forget about the dangers and horrors of war because there is no serious consequence to their lives as long as only poor kids serve and die. That is the point of the post-Vietnam lesson that a Vietnam waste of lives can never again come about if there is a knowledgeable and caring electorate. You spout words here about never again having a draft because of what bloated bureaucracy may do with the draftees, but without a draft, the electorate seems to be willing to let the bloated bureaucracy do as it will with the less fortunate ones they suck in somehow! Although I understand your sentiment about holding Bush somewhat in check because of the lack of unlimited manpower that would be provided by a draft, I just think this has to be balanced against the initial cavalier attitude that this country has toward going to war in the first place WITHOUT A DRAFT! A post-Vietnam (and now Iraq) draft would tend to keep the electorate more sensitive hopefully about the meaning of war to the voters personally!

[Cleita]

5. You misunderstood. I'm not saying the draft was wonderful. I'm

just saying that it made a difference historically in how the ordinary citizen felt about the war.

I actually do believe in a citizens' military, but I think the wars have to be chosen by that same militia. How many soldiers would have elected to go to Iraq if it were voluntary? This is how a citizens' militia works and I believe how our founding fathers thought it should work.

If our nation is attacked, the leaders send up a call to the citizens to pick up their arms and go to war to DEFEND that nation. If the citizens don't feel an oil rich nation half a world away is a big threat they can chose not to go, hence no war. Maybe diplomacy will have to be used instead. In the meantime they would have done their stretch in the military for the training they need when they might be called to VOLUNTEER to fight a war. That's how I feel the draft should be done.

I know historically citizens will go to war when they feel there is a genuine threat to the nation like in WWII. I remember young boys in high school could barely wait to enlist as did their fathers during WWII. Believe me when Korea came up, that enthusiasm wasn't there because the citizenry weren't really buying into the threat that was being propagandized and unwilling draftees were being sent to fight it. If those draftees could have volunteered, there would have been no Korean War with our involvement, IMHO.

So what I'm basically saying, is we need a trained military made up of our citizens in case of the threat of war or invasion. However, our leaders need to make their case to the citizenry that this war is necessary in order to get volunteers to actually go to war. A just war effort will probably get 99% volunteerism. I doubt if this Iraq War would have gotten 1%.

[NGinpa]

6. How do you feel about representative Democracy

versus true democracy where every citizen must vote on everything?? The path you describe is similar to a direct democracy, which evidently is too unwieldy, too slow, and requires too much time from each individual to function appropriately. One related point, however, is that even in a direct democracy, the majority vote still puts obligations on all citizens just like in representative democracy, so allowing all those not wanting to go to draw a pass may lead to libertarian anarchy in national policy!

Representative democracy can work fine if the majority electorate is educated about the facts in question and feels the results of their actions eventually. Unless you want to run this country as a direct democracy with libertarian anarchy overtones as well, then in a representative democracy, a draft is a logical mechanism that brings home to all the meaning of their vote for their representatives on critical issues related to war, IMHO!

[Cleita]

7. I actually believe in a real democracy where every citizen

serves a term in his lifetime by lottery, sort of like doing jury duty. The citizen could postpone their service until after retirement if they choose. There would be no need for parties, for elections or for professional politicians. There would be bureaucrats who would be trained to do government work and would serve through their lifetimes at their jobs like in the private sector. Their service and record would be their recommendation for staying in the job. If they don't do their job either through dishonesty or incompetence, the citizens Senate would have the right to review their case, fire them and replace them. I think it could work.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I can't answer all of your questions, but I think that money is why so many of the

volunteers are in the military. Look at the class the Army recruiters go after. They rarely are seen on college campus to recruit directly into the military. They are there to find a source for future officers. The 'grunts' are recruited with large enlistment bonuses in the poor and minority sections of town.

Although I made sure my son was registered, as required by law, I also told him that if he was ever called up and did not want to participate, I'd do everything in my power to help him avoid serving. Now on his father's side of the family, his granddad is a retired USAF colonel, his uncles are ex-Marines, and his dad spent 4 years in USAF ROTC and then 4 years in the Air Force. Grandpa flew over Nam and dad was in Thailand providing support. Most of that happened after my divorce. My dad was exempted from WWII because he was a farmer (and would have failed any physical due to a bad heart), but both of my uncles were drafted. One returned and the other was killed in France before I was born.

I sought to teach my son that there are situations when Americans need to defend the country and their way of life and times when the old men in Washington want war for greed and power. I, like most Americans, would gladly take up arms to defend this country in a 'real' war where we were being invaded, but I have opposed VietNam, the Gulf War, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq.