During my college years (1955 to 1959) I had four very close male friends. The draft was on. Here is how we avoided the it. One of my friends joined the Air Force. One became a doctor, was later drafted and served in Viet Nam as an Army doctor. I joined ROTC and avoided the draft by becoming an Army lieutenant of Infantry. One was drafted, served in the Army and was assigned to post-war Korea, where we still have a significant force. So all of us served pre-Viet Nam except the doc. Half of us were drafted. I am proud of all of us, but the choices I must admit were in some ways forced. Je regrette rien.

For someone that claims to base policy on reason rather than emotion, this certainly seems like an emotionally reactionary post. Judging from this post, which is completely bereft of any substantive policy analysis and driven wholly by emoting, you're actually pretty representative of the GOP as a whole: all ressentiment, no reason.

I wouldn't trust a baby boomer as far as I could throw one, and inasmuch as I'm right in the middle of that demographic cohort, I'm probably not in the best physical condition to throw one a great distance.

Oh, and my draft number was 25, if anyone cares.

Vietnam? Triple canopy jungle in Iraq? Maybe if the global warming folks get their act together they could arrange that...

Be that as it may, my physical conditions would have put me out of the military, so that was not an option for me. Friends of the family had sons in Vietnam, but they were distant on it.

But I did see the effects of 'The Good War': WWII.

One Uncle hit the slopes in Italy a few too many times, and came back a broken man, though still with the sweetest nature you could ever want to see. His wife had to live with the sudden, deadly attacks at night where he could not help to know who or what he was attacking. The medications helped but proved to have their own long-term side effects and claimed him late in life.

Another uncle never did get to the front: his entire boot camp was hit with meningitis. His mind never recovered from that and he was aloof and suspicious of everyone, trusted few and those with very little and was taciturn throughout what was left of his life. A man broken before he even got to combat.

My father's eyesight was so poor that he could not be used in combat, but he served as a civilian engineer ensuring that war production of electrical motors was done properly. He tells of an Italian immigrant friend who did not want to fight so badly that he used acid on his eyes to disqualify himself from combat.

I have seen the effects of 'The Good War' on some of the men involved in it. Talked with a test pilot from then Bell Aircraft who worked on the Aircobra and was also one of the first Americans to fly a Spitfire. He demonstrated with bottles as telephone poles how manueverable the plane was and that one 'did not fly the Spitfire but wore it'.

Living in the environs where Curtiss-Wright production lines once were, I got to hear the stories of their aircraft from pilots, engineers, ground crew and the travails they went through to ensure that their craft were the best possible for their work.

I look at the Nation today and I see people wanting to recoil from the horror of war and its cost. I have seen and experienced those who have paid that price and honored the dead from the extended family who did not make it back from 'The Good War' and 'The War to End All Wars'.

If you are unwilling to pay the price for a democracy and commitment of the Nation in wartime, then you cannot expect the blessing of liberty to be held well or hard any more for your Nation. The Revolution saw 10% of the Nation dead, 15% fled to other Crown colonies and an economy in pure and utter ruin. Do not talk about the cost of this back alley brawl in Iraq because it is miniscule compared to that fight... started in 1775, ratified in 1776 with the Rights of Man as an Individual to be held no matter what the government IS. Seven long, hard years of defeat save for a few notable victories including the FINAL one. Then five years in which the Nation was one Shays away from chaos and tyranny.

Fighting for this Nation has always had the blood of innocents involved, from the Revolution to this very day. You do not run from such fights no matter what the cost in lives or money. Because that decreases and demeans those that have already fought for your precious liberty and you then hand it on diminished to the next generation. Soon it will be gone, and we will be blamed for not standing up to Tyrants and Despots when they confronted us.

This is the fight of the ideology that brought forth a Nation able to fight for liberty, freedom and the Rights of Man as an Individual, and to be a Nation. Nations often do not get to choose which wars they get. But no matter what gets you into such a war, it must be fought to victory.

Or the security of those precious rights and freedoms is put at peril and they are diminished by those who would take more of them away. America can no longer afford to run for there is no place to hide. It is, indeed, a small world now. And we have some really rotten neighbors and gangsters in the neighborhood seeking to rob and enslave us. They don't appear to listen to reason and would just as rather kill as talk. We can either join with our friends in this and start to put an end to the bad actors, or die separately, quivering inside our homes and asking to be spared... and putting ourselves at the mercy of barbarians.

And if you do hide under the bed, then the hand that will reach you will be the blood slick hand of the Enemies of Freedom pulling you out to bring their world to you. This butcher must be put paid to, even though the cost never ends. For the interest is far, far cheaper than when they come for the principle because their price sheet includes every one of us. Ready to be checked off.

In our own blood.

I will admit that one aspect of the Vietnam era left has always confused me. They say that we lost in Vietnam because it was an immoral war (and make the same argument about Iraq, of course). But, isn't that arguing that might makes right?

Also, Eric, I was wondering. When you were at Berkely, were most of the troublemakers slightly older than you, or was it a fairly normal age distribution?

2 . To repeal the Military Selective Service Act. (Introduced in House)[H.R.424.IH]

3 . Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act (Introduced in House)[H.R.808.IH]

"For the life of me, I don't see why they can't admit for once that they just wanted to save their asses from the draft, and the rest is just rationalized claptrap."
Precisely.

'Scuse me. Boomer here.

Born 1946. Both parents Army Captains during WWII. Got my draft notice in 1965. Joined the Marines because I'd rather make some other dumb SOB die for his country than die myself.

Viet Nam was worth the fight, but the fight was directed by fools at the civilian levels. In spite of that it was won, then lost after the fact by the Chuck Schumers (and John Kerry) of the day.

Freedom isn't free, and isn't cash and carry. It's paid for on the installment plan, and any generation that thinks it's getting a free ride only makes the next generation pay their installment plus its own, with interest. Try to ride free long enough, and foreclosure comes.

Schumer & Co. think they can ride free forever. The price they're willing to pay is less liberty, for everyone but them of course. And of course it's the children and grandchildren of the Boomer generation (my generation) who will pay the actual price, in blood.

Pay a small price now, or a huge price later. Those are the choices.