Draft Decisions

By Sara Steere ‘13
EE Staff Writer

On Veterans Day, students have many things to be thankful for. Whether it be a safe return of a relative or our freedom in general, happiness and gratefulness are something all people should feel. However, these emotions are not what was experienced by those who had their husbands, sons, brothers, and friends torn from them in their time of battle because of the draft.

Drafting is a selfish and terrible act that should never happen again. Drafting has been a part of America’s war-time routine ever since the Civil War when the country fell apart. Young men, even boys, were forced to fight. The battles were bloody and gruesome, and most soldiers did not even know what they were fighting for.

In World War I, the only reason president Woodrow Wilson decided to use a draft was to upstage past President Theodore Roosevelt. Years later, when the U.S. entered World War II, 45 million men from 18 to 45 years old were drafted.

And in the Cold War and Vietnam, millions more were forced into combat and into wars that could never really be won.
When a person thinks about young men getting drafted, they never seem to realize that those boys could be a classmate. The same boys who have gone to school together since the age of four could end up without futures, or worse, without lives.

One veteran, Robert McKinnon, a Trumbull resident, recalls when two of his best friends were drafted. “It was awful. I had known my friends Kevin and Tommy my whole life. When they left for Vietnam I was sure I’d see them again one day. I was wrong. It’s never been the same.” This is not the life that teenagers should have to picture for themselves. Although drafting is not active in 2012, it is up to citizens to keep it that way, and make sure it never has to be put back into place.