Draft middle-aged Americans

If you want to stop the war, bring in the draft. The comfortable fat asses will hit the streets in their tens of thousands to shut the war down.

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FROM OUR READERS

November 22, 2006


U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is partly right in proposing to reinstate the military draft. But instead of conscription for young people, the age range should be 40- to 60-year-olds, male and female ("Congressman to introduce bill to reinstate military draft," Nov. 20.)

Would we be so quick to war if those of us middle-aged folk had to risk our lives even "for freedom," knowing we might never see our children or grandchildren grow into adulthood, or miss the companioning with our parents into their late years? Would we be so pathetically complacent about perpetual war if we might have to leave the comforts of our homes and other material wealth accumulated into our mid-careers?
Would we continue to be so ignorant and irresponsible in electing representatives who seem to have no conscience at all and zero grasp of the gut-wrenching enormity of their decisions driving us into wars that kill or harm other people's young-adult children?

If faced with compulsory military service, might not we baby-boomers instead begin to pay appropriate attention to elections and demand that our representatives have even some basic understanding of the intrinsic value of diplomacy for justice and peace?

Sure, reinstate the draft, but not as we have known it. It has clearly become much too easy to sacrifice the young, who should not have to pay the ultimate price before their own lives really begin because the rest of us older and wiser folk fail to love their lives as much as we love our own.

Susan F. Scannell

Allen Park

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