The Draft

my understanding is that the borders to canada, and even mexico, are in the process of being sealed as we speak. where to next, then?

I won't fight for anything, but I'm a girl so I don't have to worry. I will physically maim my male friends (the ones I actually like, at least) though if it comes to it, because that whole "Don't draft me, I'm gay" thing won't work anymore. So Otis better start praying this draft ain't gonna happen otherwise I'm going all Kathy Bates in Misery on his ass, amongst others.

"If you get drafted, you are gay. Terribly gay. Ridiculously, flamboyantly, demonstratively gay. YOU LOVE MEN."

Took me a little while to get to the gist of that statement.

I think the cut-off age is 26 or 27, though, so I'm almost out of the woods, so to speak, if that's true.

Of course, if I travel to Italy, I'll probably get arrested for dodging the draft THERE, so perhaps I should flee to Canada, just to be safe. Anyone wanna take a roadtrip?

I come from a strong Forces background. I know plenty of people with conflict experience already and I'm worried what they'll be asked to do for this time. But I know the thought of getting out of it wouldn't occur to them. And that they would go out there and fight. I don't know what I'd do. I wouldn't want to fight, but if it got to the point where I'd be called up... I don't know.

Paul, isn't that pretty close to what you do at work already? ;-)

My dad, as I've mentioned before, was a career Navy man, graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1962 and served with distinction and ever-increasing rank and important assignments through 1992. Since I don't remember Vietnam at all due to my age (and as my dad was a submarine guy, there wasn't much he'd be doing there anyway) and since all the years since he was never in any wartime danger, I grew to regard his job as both a good thing to do and something where he'd always come home at the end of the day. A skewed vision, of course.

But I could never be military. Morally, philosophically, hell in terms of mental attitude alone. If they really wanted me, they'd have to question whether it was worth the effort, and frankly I don't think it is.

I've known folks who joined the military specifically because even though they hated it, they knew it would help them out of the rut they were in -- I'm talking homegrown anarchists in Bumfuck deep in the Midwest with no chance of affording college or the like. That's a bold decision to take in many ways, and for those reasons I really have nothing against anyone who wants to join up or would agree to go along with a draft, because who knows what the motivations are for them in the end? But right now this whole scenario is just making me more and more depressed.

I've been thinking to myself that I'll probably be dead at this rate within the next ten years for some reason or another.

My answer? I am way too unfit to be a soldier and my heart condition would invalid me out anyway most likely. But if I thought the cause was just I would probably join up and try and do something when I might actually be useful - analysis or propaganda or something, I think I'd make quite a good propagandist. Is the cause just in the current situation, is the question.

Sorry, Ronan, but bollocks to that. I'd say it's unlikely, but nevertheless possible. that YOU, and ME, and others like us might have to forgo swanning around buying CDs and surfing the Web for a while whilst we DO SOMETHING to get the world out of this f@ckin'nightmare. Like others have done ON OUR BEHALF throughout history. As Tom said, it might not be necessary to don a tin hat and grab a gun to be useful, but whatever job it is it will for sure infringe your precious personal liberty.

Nails-on-blackboard: that's like saying, "After I saw that mini- series Moby Dick...!" Out of curiosity, though, when was there ever a television series made of it? I assume it was quite a long series...

A Dance to the Music of Time -- buy it! I am posting to ILE and doing my marketing job at the same time...

xoxo

If there was any way to ensure that rich people's kids couldn't weasel out of it somehow, would compulsory national service be a good idea? Not just military, but Americorps or the Peace Corps or other youth service programs.