edgarblythe wrote:By being a responsible person, one is already serving the nation. Involuntary service puts us in league with dictatorships. The only way I can accept any form of a draft is when the nation is in true dire straits, as WWII. A situation that is elective (Iraq, for instance) should not qualify.
One post on this thread separates the army from the Navy and Air Force. They are part of an integral war machine, dependant on one another. I served in one branch, as a volunteer. I encouraged my children to decide for themselves. None opted to join up, and I support that.
When the Iraq war began, my boss told me, "I would sacrifice my son over there."
"They take women too," I replied.
Abrupt end of conversation.
You believe the country was "in true dire straits, as WWII"? There were people who would have had us avoid WWII at all costs. They would have let Hitler take Europe, leave the Japanese alone (did we not blockade Japan's ports?), and not get involved. However, there were other factors that got us into WWII, and it was not "dire straits." It was politics, and maintaining the world as we knew it, since the militarism of the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese was an attempt to usher in a new civilization that was allowed to rely on slave labor. In effect, I believe, we were in WWII, because it was the right thing to do. We have since gone into all military actions, including the present ones, I believe, for the same reason: it is the right thing to do. Sorry, if you do not like the reality, I believe, that we are living in a country that takes its morality seriously. Remember, we were not always so moral a nation. But, I believe, nations and people grow up.
