Bringing Back Conscription

James D. Zirin’s July 4 column about a draft (“With Winds of War, Don’t You Feel a Draft?” Commentary) mentions and then blows right by the obvious problem: We are spread too thin militarily around the world.

Zirin warns of a draft to thicken our forces across the board, but he ignores the obvious solution that requires no conscription or slavery: Get military priorities straight. We do not need to have troops in 144-plus countries. We need them here at home. That’s their job. These other nations are big boys and girls and can get by without us. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense has ceded its job of defending our borders to the Department of Homeland Security.

We shouldn’t need another bureaucracy to do the job that the first one is supposed to be doing. Instead, we need to have the first one do the job it’s supposed to do, instead of being the world’s cop. A conscription draft does nothing to get our priorities as a nation back on the correct track.

Michael Seebeck

Riverside

Regarding the proposal to require all Americans between the ages of 18 and 26 to serve in either the armed forces or “in a civilian capacity that ... promotes national defense,” have the proponents considered the costs of housing, feeding, clothing and providing health services for millions of young people year after year? What would their “civilian duties” comprise and what would be the consequences for those young people who are less than enthusiastic in performing those “duties”? Finally, would the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the armed forces be dropped, or would all who declare themselves gay be exempted from the draft?

Michael Everett

Santa Monica

Zirin writes “there may be no alternative to conscription.” The alternative is for the United States to pull its 130,000 troops out of Iraq as soon as possible.

Hank Garretson

Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

My only child has no intention of sacrificing herself to a self-inflicted “war on terror,” a situation that is the result of decades of monomaniacal and corrupt hubris on the part of the U.S. government’s foreign policy. Our propping up of corrupt and repressive dictators the world over, as long as they were anti-communist or sat on large oil deposits, has won us many enemies.

Zirin mentions assertions by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) that a draft would remedy the disproportionate number of working-class and minority soldiers in the volunteer Army. What planet have they been living on? Servitude in the military has always been and will always be a burden inflicted largely on the lower classes while the upper classes buy their way out or get safer officer’s commissions and time off to work on a political campaign. Why, please tell me, will this self-inflicted war be any different? Because it is based in truth? Because it is based in honor? Humbug!

Patt O’Neill

Palm Springs

The reason for a draft in our democracy is an obligation of its citizens to serve the nation. “We the people” should forever be an all-inclusive phrase. And therein lies the rub. Throughout America’s history, inequality of military service has existed. If the problem were racial, we’d fix it; if it were gender, we’d fix it.

This is a class struggle that pits the sons and daughters of the higher economic rung against the less fortunate. An unequal price is being paid in a land that claims that all men are created equal.

“We the people” can create a draft that is all-inclusive and blind to class distinction. We could create an equal opportunity society. Just as President Truman’s integration of the Army led eventually to racial equality within our society, an inclusive draft would help assure class equality. We owe it to ourselves and our nation to create equality for classes in all service of the nation. Now, the class in power shares no risk of personal loss. Eliminate risk and you can dare to do anything. And they do.

Pete Alberini

La Mirada