Reflections on the Military Draft

  In today's Writer's Almanac (which I receive online) Garrison Keillor reports that on this date in 1940 75,000 American men reported for America's first peace time military draft.  The draft continued until after the war, was ended  but reinstated under President Truman during the cold war.  It ended in 1973.
  This paragraph is taken from the Almanac.,  "Most Americans were happy about the end of the draft, but in 1999 the historian Stephen Ambrose wrote: "Today, Cajuns from the Gulf Coast have never met a black person from Chicago. Kids from the ghetto don't know a middle-class white. Mexican-Americans have no contact with Jews. Muslim Americans have few Christian acquaintances ... But during World War II and the Cold War, American [men] from every group got together in the service, having a common goal — to defend their country ... They learned together, pledged allegiance together, sweated together, hated their drill sergeants together, got drunk together, went overseas together. What they had in common — patriotism, a language, a past they could emphasize and venerate — mattered far more than what divided them."
   Ambrose makes a very good point.  I remember having much more in common with James Early, a middle class African American  from Cleveland than with Mike King a Caucasian from Louisiana.  I've forgotten Rocky's last name but he was from the Bronx and was in legal trouble and enlisted to avoid going to jail...so much for Ambrose' emphasis on patriotism.  But, for a farm boy coming off the farm in the 50s it was my first exposure to diversity.  Linville Sims from Pumpkin Ridge, KY was in my company as was JohnWatne from Blackduck, MN,  Bill Wright from El Paso, TX, Jerry Eldridge from Michigan City, IN...the list goes on.
  As long as we have a military we should have a draft.  Military duties now fall disproportionately on one group.  Draftees...and those facing the draft...are the most vocal in opposition to war.