Thoughts of war are not a normal college student’s top concern, but some members of Congress are trying to bring it to the forefront through discussions of the draft and military recruitment.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has proposed legislation requiring military service and other types of national service for men and women between the ages of 18 and 26. In other words, the bill would reinstate the draft that ended in 1973.
Since 1980, young men have been required to register with the Selective Service System when they turned 18 in case a draft was needed. The draft would exclude only those graduating from high school — up to age 20 — with no exceptions for college or graduate school students, male or female, Rangel said in a press release.
However, Rangel’s intentions are not to reinstate the draft. A veteran of the Korean War and opponent of war with Iraq, Rangel said he thinks members of Congress would be less likely to support war with Saddam Hussein if their children were the ones going to fight the war.
Many of those young people going to fight could be college students, and LSU students have concerns about the draft bill.
“The draft is not necessary with most of the things they’ve done,” said Theresa Aylward, a graduate student in accounting. “The National Guard is well-trained – if they resorted to the draft, they couldn’t teach them fast enough.”
She is in favor of restoring the military to get rid of the need for a draft.
“Nobody wants to go to war. You just have to do what you have to do,” she said.
Aylward, whose father is in the military, said there have been many terrorist attacks on Americans in other countries before Sept. 11.
She said the Philippines have become a safe haven for terrorists because there are islands only natives know about, and as part of an agreement, there is no longer a U.S. base in the Philippines.
“They don’t understand what our country is all about,” she said.
Rep. David Vitter, R-La., proposed an amendment to the No Child Left Behind Act attempting to beef up the military by allowing military recruiters to go onto high school campuses to recruit high school students.
In 2000, there were approximately 19,000 instances in which military recruiters were denied access to high school campuses, according to the Armed Forces. This amendment would give recruiters the same amount of access they would get from a college or post-secondary institution, Vitter said in a column.
However, some students disagree with this type of recruitment.
“If you’re under 18, you can’t make your own choices. You can’t see ‘R’ rated movies,” said Rob Shadoin, a business administration junior. “If you can’t see ‘Saving Private Ryan’ on the screen, why should you want to go fight for it, and why should you have to?”
A psychology junior, Hannah Miller, said she thinks high school students are too young to be recruited.
“Kids that age are pretty impressionable and can be easily swayed by free college tuition and the glorification of war,” said Miller.
The amendment has caused some privacy issue complaints; however, Vitter addressed these concerns by placing two “opt-out” clauses on the amendment.
One allows parents to deny the military access to their child’s name, address and phone number, and the other allows faith-based schools who object to the military, such as Quakers, to deny access as well, Vitter said.
Still, Shadoin said, “[the military] is not doing a good enough job if they’re recruiting from high schools.”
Political science senior Jessica Stewart said it is not a matter of if the United States is going to attack Iraq, but when.
She thinks President George W. Bush is putting diplomacy in jeopardy by going against France and Germany in wanting to attack Iraq. Whether Iraq has nuclear weapons or not is not definite.
“I think the United States has to concentrate on North Korea,” said Rajeev Madazhy, a graduate student in mechanical engineering. “They seem to be a more dangerous country. The same measures should be used with North Korea as with Iraq.”
Miller does not think the president should do anything without the support of the United Nations.
Stewart supports a diplomatic solution instead of aggression.
Nevertheless, Aylward said she thinks “something big” will happen soon.
“There is no way to resolve things with talks — I think that time has passed,” she said. “We were doing that, then New York got bombed.”
Computer engineering sophomore Brandon Arnold said he thinks the United States has enough manpower to deal with North Korea and Iraq.
Still, many agree they do not want to go to war.
“Our country experienced the atomic bomb,” said Rylko Imamura, a biological sciences junior from Japan. “It’s just scary.”