BUSH'S SURGIN' GENERALS

I can still remember when it was called escalation. Well, now it's a surge--just one more disaster, like the Katrina floods, or the South Asian tsunami. Twenty thousand more of our soldiers thrown at an enemy that, like a hydra, grows more heads as we chop them off, or like the Tar Baby, binds our hands tighter the harder we strike. Our Glorious Leader seems equally unclear about where these soldiers are to go, and where they are to come from. "We'll just kind of weasel their enlistments around the edges," the experts tell us. "Deploy them to Iraq a little earlier and keep them there a little longer." And, no doubt, call them back a little more often, like the poor guy who was called back for deployment after three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and told the brass not to wait up for him. Eventually they backed down. Are they planning on trying it again?

The alternative--some would say the unavoidable alternative--is a draft. As the war becomes less popular, recruiting becomes more difficult. There is a limit to the lies they can tell and the tricks they can pull on reluctant recruits (one young woman I spoke to said she called her recruiter to tell him she was not going to report for active duty. The recruiter asked her to come in and talk to him. The next thing she knew, she was on the plane headed for Boot Camp. She is now in the process of being discharged for depression.) So why bother with the illusion of voluntariness? Let's stick to drafting teenagers, instead of deploying middle-aged reservists. Physically, they're probably in better shape, and mentally they're a lot better at shutting up and doing what they're told.

A conscript army would not only be younger, but would include a lot more ethnic minorities, including the children of immigrants. It would also be fatter, and probably less educated than the army we have now. Fewer of its members would be aiming for college. Fewer of its members would be motivated by the desire to serve and to "give back." Most of them would probably view military service as just an extension of high school, and would try to get through it the same way.

Are the American people ready for another draft? Did the Vietnam experience turn us off so completely that we can never again accept it? The generation that dealt with the Vietnam-era draft are the parents and even the grandparents of today's potential draftees. Are we prepared to remind the country of what it was like?

Well, for further information, take a look at an earlier posting here, called "Backdraft." Those of us who were there owe our children and grandchildren an accurate picture of the part of our past that may lie in their future. In the immortal words of Nancy Reagan, just say no.