Written by Tom Walker   

When I was 18 years old I was freshly graduated from high school and living the dream – working full time at Alta, Utah, and skiing every chance I got. I still remember with clarity that year watching on a grainy black and white television screen the Selective Service (draft) lottery. To say my heart sank when my birthdate became number 3 would understate by orders of magnitude my actual frame of mind at the time. I don’t recall what the expected priority cutoff number was, but a priority number 3 assured me of either a tour in the armed services or, if I couldn’t reconcile myself to that prospect, a trip across the border to Canada.
Being a brash 18 year old I took the obvious path – procrastination, meaning I “postponed” registering for the draft. After more than a year the tales of people in my position being summarily hauled off either to jail or to a military barracks weighed heavily enough on me that I decided to take my lumps and register. It was lunchtime when I entered the registration office, so only one staffer, a woman, was on hand. I informed her I was late but had come in to register. She told me not to worry about it, then asked how late. When I said “more than a year” her pleasant visage dissolved into a look of concern.
“Do you have a copy of your birth certificate with you?” she asked.
“No, why?” I replied.
“Well, if a person is later than [a forgotten parameter] we are supposed to formally verify his date of birth.”
I contemplated the situation and thought to myself “if I leave here unregistered, I’ll take my chances and not come back.” Instead, I offered this argument:
“I’m 19, my lottery number is 3 and I’m a full time skier. Can you think of any reason I would be lying?”
Miraculously, she thought briefly and said “No, I can’t.” After that my registration proceeded without difficulty and led to a three year tour of duty in the Army (why three instead of a draftee’s two year obligation? That’s a story for another time).
All of the preceding is to say I was not happy about being subject to conscription. Which, fundamentally, is why I believe a return to the draft is a good idea.
Since Vietnam, here is a list of major military actions involving US troops:

Multi-National force in Lebanon (1982 – 1984)
Invasion of Grenada (1983)
The Persian Gulf Tanker War (1987 – 1988)
Invasion of Panama (1989 – 1990)
Gulf War (1990 – 1991)
Iraq No-Fly Zones enforcement (1991 – 2003)
Somali Civil War (1992 – 1995)
Intervention in Haiti (1994 – 1995)
Bosnian War (1994 – 1995)
Kosovo War (1998 – 1990)
War in Afghanistan (2001 – Present)
Iraq War (2003 – 2011)
War in Pakistan (2004 – Present)
Operation Ocean Shield (2009 – Present)
Libyan Civil War (2011)
War on ISIL (2014 – Present)

During the Vietnam conflict major domestic strife was an almost daily feature. Demonstrations/sit-ins on college campuses were common. On October 21, 1967, some 100,000 protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial; around 30,000 of them continued in a march on the Pentagon later that night (http://www.history.com/topics/Vietnam-war/Vietnam-war-protests). On February 27, 1968 Walter Cronkite closed his CBS special newscast with a commentary critical of the Vietnam War, reportedly prompting President Nixon to say “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”

Not only were students and Vietnam Veterans Against the War in a perpetual state of agitation, middle aged Americans were expressing discontent as well. A Gallup poll in early February 1968 showed 50% of those polled disapproved of President Johnson’s handling of Vietnam (http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-protests).

Contrast that history with the domestic quiet that has characterized public reaction to our military actions since Vietnam. Of course, editorials regularly inveigh in favor or opposition to these adventures, but why no public displays of disapproval on anywhere near the scale of what took place during Vietnam? Our broad public silence hangs like a pall over our dead and wounded.

The most obvious answer is our conversion to an all-volunteer military. During Vietnam, college students were at imminent peril of being forced to go to war whether they wished to or not. Parents were at equally imminent peril of having sons forced to fight and return home crippled or in caskets. Under those circumstances, the more our body politic questions the justification for war, the more likely those at risk are going to rise up in boisterous defiance. The fact of proposing armed conflict, furthermore, motivates those at risk to more carefully and fully understand the rationale for going forward.

No such risk or motivation faces our draft age men today. All of those soldiers doing the fighting chose to participate, so the closest we come to acknowledging their sacrifice is displaying “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers and wearing American flag pins on our lapels. If those are “sacrifices,” then getting canned from a senior corporate position with a multi-million dollar severance package is “punishment.” In addition, the parents of slain or maimed soldiers grieve, but their grief is salved by outpourings of kudos for their children’s brave heroism and the knowledge that, knowing the risks, they willingly put themselves in harm’s way.

One very dangerous consequence of these evolved conditions is that the government is given a remarkably free hand to engage problem situations around the globe with military might. Pundits may criticize with vigor, but if the broad public greets these situations with a collective yawn, why should the government not feel emboldened to act according to its own preferences? Perhaps I am mistaken, but I believe it safe to expect that the original Iraq invasion to oust Saddam Hussein would have provoked a great deal of outspoken resistance by unwilling conscripts placed at risk. Certainly, there was a vast collection of publicly available information at the time calling into question the need to go to war. That trove would have been mined a good deal more thoroughly and publicly by those potentially forced to participate. Because our draft age men faced no such risk, the easier course of action was to do nothing but accept the administration’s decision making.

All of this adds up to the dissolution of what once was a formidable brake on military adventurism. Especially as conflicts wear on, the body politic needs to be persuaded that the sacrifice of conscripted soldiers, and the expenditure of associated treasure, is for a cause worthy of the ongoing pain.

I read persuasive essays almost daily on leading papers’ editorial pages, but those exhortations will only fan the flames of serious public discord if the public is required to bear the real burden, the heartbreak and agony, of poor decision making where large scale use of military force is on the table as a solution to problems. A return to the draft would mean a return to sharing pain and sacrifice in a way our citizens are shielded from today.

Because a return to the draft would be deeply unpopular, it would consequently be an important step in lending greater sanity to our more hawkish impulses.