FEEL A DRAFT?Are you, perhaps, one of that special group of constantly cog native people who seem to have an innate ability to sense changes in their lives which they cannot hear, see or feel?
I am convinced there are such individuals. They don’t always know what to do about what they know, however. These are the people who we look back upon and with hindsights say: “We should have listened to so-and- so!”
If you think you may be such a person – at least, at times: do you, at this moment in our national history, happen to feel a “draft” ? I do, and if I could feel, I were absolutely correct about it, I would be arguing for the immediate installation of some such system of conscription other than the make-do system which sends the very same units back top the zones of combat again-and-again with only a few weeks of respite from the rigors of such assignments.
The present system is grossly unfair to the men and women who constitute such groups now deployed in combat areas...National Guard and Reserve Units of all kinds. It, furthermore, severely endangers the well-being of our nation, weakens our cause, gives special advantages to the enemies of our nation, deceives our allies causing them to question our willingness to fight at our best, and the only people pleased will be the political forces who seem to stand, far too often with what comes close to being almost criminal intent to hang on to long-dead relics of really petty political party-isms. Such nostalgic memories serve little purpose in time of war.
We are living in such a time now, too. I feel strongly that a military draft is essential to our place in the world of war and the sooner we can get it working, the better. Delay will cause it to be "too little; too late" with greater, unneeded, lost of life and property - world wide.
This is no petty bush war. It does not yet officially "World War III" but it is being called just that by many people - some of whom see the horrible death, mutilation, starvation and diseases running a amok in the Sudan and a score of other such catastrophic emergencies are evident around the world. They are in all the major cultures, too, not just the underside and areas dominated by dictatorships.
How can we simply sit by and bicker endlessly until our next, scheduled "Election Day"? We have leadership we elected ! Let's support that leadership. Let's honor the sacrifices our armed forces are making day and night! The overall situation, I fear, urgently demands that we put our political, social, racial, economic and religious differences aside and be citizens all.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 9-14-06 {c474wds]
