If the draft were started up again, lots of you say no way your kids are going.

Not saying I blame you.

You rarely if ever heard parents say that in the days of the Vietnam War.

Wonder why?

War is a result of failure. It is the result of having imbeciles in positions of power.

very supportive of any measures my brother and I took to avoid vietnam. Many of my peers were in similar situations. My draft year was 69, and by that time kids were in open rebellion against the draft and the war, draft resistance was widespread, and while there was no internet for parents to be vocal in their support for keeping their kids out of a bad war, that support was there.

I asked your age because I wanted to make sure I was responding to a peer and not somebody who heard about the war.

nation and our children into a quagmire. I'd say parents learned the lessons of Vietnam quite well, thank you very much.

But I don't care if he was 24 years old, he still wouldn't go. I simply refuse to sacrifice a child for a lie that enables war profiteers. Viva la France! France here we (would) come...Freedom Fries for everyone!

and my kid is all of 3 years old. Why? Because the Repugs want this to be an eternal war, still going on when my kid comes of age. But my son will not be cannon fodder for their illegal war. Our gift from the god/dess will not be thrown away for war profits.

How can he leave the pResidency while the people of I-wreck have no water? No, we must sacrifice your children so that they will not thirst. (heavy on sarcasm).

They had fought the "good" war, and they still held the idea that the US was a beacon of freedom, not a newly moneyed state that wanted to start up its imperial programs again.

Parents today are realists, and because of this, more cynical. As they should be.

My father said exactly that about Vietnam. And I heard plenty of other parents say the same thing at the time.

Parents today have only Vietnam (if they were even alive during that era) and "The War on Terror" to reflect upon.

There's a huge difference in our participation in WWII and Vietnam, wouldn't you say?

There's a huge difference in total war, with total aims, and limited war, with limited aims. Sacrificing one's child for the survival of America after Pearl Harbor is very different than sacrificing one's child for the domino theory/communist rollback or for what has proven to be, in the case of TWOT, for corporate gain and very little gain for common people--and for the overthrow of a dictator that was never a real threat to the American people.

and go expected me to head for Canada, and he was upset when I took my low number as an invitation to enlist into the shaky promise of a non-combat MOS.

(or daughter) out of the U.S.CorporateProfitIndustrialMilitaryMachine

I don't care what it takes, our kids will not be enslaved in order to slaughter brown people for Halliburton

"I did it, so you hafta do it too! It's fer your COUNTRY, goddamn it!"

Problem is, they didn't get that Vietnam wasn't like their war. They believed there was a purpose, a defense of the ideals and freedoms of this nation against an enemy contrary to that way of thinking. Until their kids came home in boxes and bags by the thousands with no visible progress or end in sight.

Plus many were in a fog about how this government was using our military. There was no questioning that invading Vietnam was of the noble cause of "stoppin' comm'nism from spreading". Many didn't pay attention to Eisenhower's "Military Industrial Complex" speech.

Not so much now. We became educated in the 90s that the whole "Red Menace" thing was a neo-con-voluted pile of hooey. We know our military is stretched to the brink in our own Vietnam. Our children have other options.

And the politicians know instituting a draft would result in chaos like this country's never seen . . . one that could possibly result in their removal at the price of thousands of US citizen deaths (thanks to Blackwater USA).

today were or were close enough to being those drafted in Vietnam. THAT is why we are vocal and that is the reason my sons will be protected from this war. I will do whatever possible because this war is an illegal occupation and the WOT is idiocy. All for a megalomaniac and his buds.

Before the wars that were fought were portrayed as noble wars. I will not make a judgment on if they were or not. I tend to think, like a poster mentioned above, that wars are always because of failure and they do not solve anything that could not be handled by diligent and honest diplomacy and problem solving.

when they were kids. That was the last conventional war. Good guys vs bad guys. They thought Viet Nam was more of the same. Nowadays, parents realize that Iraq is more like Viet Nam.

of bullshit wars for bullshit reasons.

I am a Viet-Nam vet. Wed have not learned a thing in 40 years. They did not want us in there country then and they dont want us in Irag now. Let them try a draft now. nobody would show up.

Semper-Fi

There is no way--no way--I would let him be drafted when he is of age. We would leave the country first.

won't go if I can possibly help it. My husband had a draft number with a 1953 b-day and would've been called in 1973 had the draft continued. His parents (WWII vet Dad) told him to go to Canada if his number was called.