Millennial Generation starting to worry about DRAFT

[Dems Will Win]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4760088/

Draft Me Not
At the University of Minnesota, the D word is slipping into anxious conversations about Iraq

It’s hard to find much that’s humorous about the news these days, though, as the situation in Iraq grows worse. Politicians are no help—only the most partisan students here accept their talking points. The rest of us are confused and concerned; we're worried about our friends and family as U.S. troops and civilians come under escalating attack. Even for those of who don’t know people fighting in Iraq, the rising death toll has a personal side: the troops who are dying are our age—they could be our classmates and friends. And if things keep getting worse, we could be forced by our government to join them in their fight.

Fears of the draft on this campus have been rising with the death toll. The chances of a forced conscription coming back are vague, of course, but so is everything else about Iraq—who will govern the country after the transfer of sovereignty in June, how power will be distributed among the Iraqi people, what the future role will be for U.S. troops. All that’s clear is the troubling reality of the present. I turn on the news and see that this April, only half over, is already the bloodiest month of fighting in the entire war. As I watch everyone around me fretting about their taxes, I think of the Iraqis, whose government only exists as an idea at this point, much less a tax-supported democratic authority. To get them from here to a self-sufficient government could require years of U.S. involvement. Our military is already stretched to capacity. If the situation continues to deteriorate, the draft could be the only choice U.S. policymakers have to make.

These are the doomsday scenarios students struggle over in idle conversation here. Some raise the possibility of being attacked on another flank while our forces are tied up in Iraq, a frightening scenario that would almost assuredly necessitate a draft. Up to now, most college students have shied away from the Iraq-as-Vietnam comparisons that so fixate some adults because none of us lived through that painful war. But with draft talk in the air on campus, the Vietnam comparison is suddenly starting to hit home.

-snip-

All of this makes the 2004 vote, the first election in which some students here will cast a ballot, seem quite important. Students know they are choosing a leader to manage not only our own country’s woes and prospects, but the future of another country, as well. That choice is not obvious, but it is clear to most of those around me that a new strategy must be adopted. For the time being, my peers and I have the luxury of discussing the war at school in Minneapolis—not in Fallujah. Every day we nervously scan the headlines, hoping things stays that way.

-snip-

[SpiralHawk]

1. Choose wisely, lads and lassies

Far more than your personal destiny rides on the outcome of election 2004.

[seabeyond]

2. finally raising pretty little heads out of the keg

and looking around at the world to see how it effects them.

well good for them, and about d*mn time and the girls ought to see what is happening to their rights also as they look around at the world being created for them to live in

what has happened to the voice of youth

this is the part of hagels draft purposal i agree with. make our children feeling a sense of responsibility and obligation to their country. if you think the adults are apathetic now, wait for the generation of the children they have raised to become the adults.