Is There a Draft in Your Future?

Is There a Draft in Your Future?

The answer is a resounding and unequivocal “no!” The chance of a military draft, both in the near future, or distant future, is about as possible as my becoming a professor of physics. And with my math skills, the prospect of a professorship in physics is about as likely as aliens showing up on my front lawn. Although I do display a peace flag close to that lawn, I rest assured that the prospect of aliens is nil, or even less than nil.

Why won’t there be a military draft, despite years of receiving well-intended communications from an individual who has kept the flame burning for preparedness in the face of what won’t happen? I commend that person, but it ain’t going to happen.

It, a draft, won’t happen for two reasons: First, however distant there’s the memory and history of the Vietnam War and how the draft caused a response both in and outside of the military to slow and stop that war. For readers who don’t believe that history, look to the numbers that I won’t bore people with. Hundreds of thousands of young men revolted against the draft in many, many ways. Look to our challenged president for one example, although I’m hesitant to hold up Mr. Bone Spurs to any high standard. There were many, many ways out of the draft during Vietnam and that ultimately slowed the ability of both Johnson and Nixon to fight that war. Second, there was rebellion within the military to the point of soldiers in the field refusing to follow orders they felt were bogus. The latter became so extreme that the existence of fragging took place, which was the elimination of officers who gave those ill-conceived orders. The opposite of this phenomenon was the My Lai massacre led by William Calley. Many in the US could not stomach the mass murder of unarmed civilians.

Besides this trend to buck the military in times of war, there exists the state of mind that fighting wars for the US is not something many men and women want to sign onto. Some do, however, but most are not willing to support US adventures with their bodies and lives, and that generally is the rule with certain exceptions such as the terror attacks of September 2001.

Still, the chance of a draft is equal to my being called to duty as a physicist. I don’t mean to make light of this situation in the backstory of the war of aggression against Iran, but the automatic registration of men of draft age, if in fact it becomes a reality, is more about getting data about people than any real prospect of a draft.

During the Vietnam War, I was a member of the National Guard, the Reserves, and for a time was on active duty. Following the massacre at My Lai and the Kent State massacre, I became a war resister. I joined hundreds of thousands of men and a few women as war resisters during that war. I was, and am, as Dr. Willard Gaylin recounts in his book about war resisters, In The Service Of Their Country (1970).