... me to war.

Of course, at that time, the voting age as 21 and the draft eligible age was 18, with 19 being the effective draft age - unless you were rich. But, IIRC after Nixon ended the draft, anti-war activity dropped significantly.

It's somewhat of a conundrum. I don't want the US to be militaristic but I would also like to see it as a free nation. The draft definitely puts a stopper on militarism; but requiring young people to go into the military is anti-freedom.

One thing we definitely need is to make the cost of war clear to the average citizen. When bush invaded Iraq, he pushed the cost of the war off 'til later years. Maybe in preference to a draft, we could pass a law that military action has to be fully funded in the present. Hit people in the wallet and they react.

the night of the first lottery. Everyone in the barracks was gathered around a radio to learn how they may have fared if their draft notices had been delayed by just a few weeks My birth date came up #360.

I don't have a problem with requiring two years of service (Peace Corps, military, AmeriCorps, etc) from young folks.

The approximate equivalent of when the Roman Empire became dependent on mercenary armies and the Roman people became sheep.

I remember talking to people who had left the service and could still be called up after their obligation was finished. Not a lot of happy campers in that lot.

With the loss of the draft came the rise of the private contractor to fill noncombat positions, which in turn has lead to the spiraling costs of the last two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq). Private contractors establish political patronage with all of these large governement contracts and the cycle continues. I still remember our local radio reporting on how much pizza, chicken wings and non-alcoholic beer was being shipped to the troops overseas to help them celebrate the Superbowl. All I could think was how much is this costing us and do we really need to reward our troops with food that isn't really good for them?

with voters . . .

No thanks.

How dare he promote drafting women, when the biggest part of the anti-ERA argument was that the ERA would subject them to the draft?

unless the size of the military was drastically expanded. The military is so much smaller and the daft pool so much larger (due to both population growth and adding women to the pool) that only a tiny proportion will be drafted to fight. Since the military has no problems getting volunteers, just how many billets for draftees will there be?

I think on the surface Israels military program looks pretty fair to their citizens. Almost everyone is required to serve 2 years? and they get a very good education at the same time.

I was of draftable age during Vietnam. I remember a would-have-been classmate of mine that returned before I graduated college. He was sort of lazy, but not stupid. He was flunking out of college, about to lose his student deferment, and so volunteered for the Air Force, told them he spoke German and Russian, and so they sent him to spy school in Syracuse, NY and then on to West Berlin to spy on the Soviet Air Force. I suppose I could have done the same thing since I speak German and Russian, too, and it would have been preferable to being sent to Vietnam.

But I didn't think any country, including my own, had the right to tell me to "put down the books, pick a gun, we're gonna have a whole lot of fun," as Country Joe McDonald put it.

Knowing me, I would have been just as likely to shoot an idiot commanding officer as a VC (and I am a very good shot) if I thought he was giving orders that were tantamount to murder, and then they would have executed me. It's better I took the job I have on a voluntary basis. OK, I was recruited, but had the option to say no. The draft did not give me that option.

By the way, my father-in-law was horrified that his son, my wife's brother, was going to have to do his country's compulsory (at the time) military service. Prior to his physical, he juiced himself up on pills and alcohol, didn't sleep for 3 days, was judged unfit to serve, and given a public service alternative. My father-in-law prayed that his grandchildren would all be girls, so they would never be forced to serve in the military. He got his wish.

You see, he was drafted off his farm at age 17 to serve in World War II. He was sent to the Russian front, got one of his legs blown off during the carnage at Stalingrad and nearly froze to death before being saved at the last moment by retreating forces. He returned to his farm in 1942, an 18 year old cripple. He hated the military, guns, war, and all violence. He had seen the worst of it, and knew full well what he DIDN'T want for his children and grandchildren. I can't imagine in a million years what he went through and experienced, but nor do I want to. No one should be forced to, either.

...I believe that it should be uniform service as opposed to "selective" service where it's literally luck of the draw. What I mean by that is that every person (men and women) should serve in the military for ONE year (not two) after they finish high school and passed their 18th birthday. This way there would be no uncertainty about who would be drafted and who wouldn't, and younger people's lives wouldn't be totally disrupted (i.e.--finish high school, serve one year in the military, then go to college or begin your career). The shorter term of service would help offset the cost of accommodating the high number of recruits.

That said, I oppose the reinstatement of the military draft (unless there were a dire need for it, as there was in the early 1940's). All moral and emotional reasons aside, we just don't have the money to accommodate millions of new recruits (nearly all of whom would be temporary) in the U.S. Armed Forces.

We lost tens of thousands of soldiers in Vietnam AFTER the draft began, despite years of protests involving millions of protesters. In the end, it wasn't the protesters that stopped the war. It was some Watergate burglars.