By Brent Johnson
The biggest problem I have with a compulsory draft is that it cannot ever be considered constitutional, regardless of the so-called reasons for having one.
When a citizen enlists in any of the Armed Services, he or she must take a sworn oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution from all enemies, domestic or foreign, and to obey the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Upon taking this oath, the enlistee becomes G.I., which means government issue.
You see, members of the military must voluntarily waive their God-given rights in order to be a part of any branch of the Armed Services; and therein lies my problem with a draft.
If our government is ever empowered with authority to compel American Citizens to waive or otherwise surrender their unalienable, Creator-endowed rights, then America is truly on the fast track to tyranny, and it is only a matter of time before our Constitution, Declaration, and the Rule of Law itself are relegated to the trash heap of forgotten or revised history.
Please don’t think that I am uninterested in securing our Republic… nothing could be further from the truth. However, I believe that our security must be achieved without undermining the very fabric of our society. If we give up the freedoms that identify America as special, a beacon of possibilities for the rest of the world, then we become no better than the rest of the world. Is our security worth that cost? I don’t think so.
The reason this has become an issue in the first place is because American servicemen and women are not volunteering to extend their tours of duty. It would seem more useful to ask ourselves, “Why not?” Why don’t our young men and women want to serve their country?
The demoralization of the Armed Forces has grown out of the lies and misrepresentations made by government officials, up to and including the current illegitimate president, who is supposed to be Commander in Chief of the military.
American soldiers, many of whom are devout in their respective faiths, have been asked to do things that offend their consciences and violate their own understandings of constitutional and even more important, scriptural law. Such philosophical personal conflicts inevitably lead to diminished efficiency, second-guessing, and frequently suicide in those who fail to reconcile their conflicting views. That is why so few soldiers are re-enlisting, and why many believe that the U.S. government is seeking to reinstate a compulsory draft.
Wouldn’t it be more effective to correct the morale problems that have caused the situation to exist in the first place? Perhaps if Washington would be more forthcoming and honest about the circumstances surrounding the undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, then the soldiers would be better equipped to deal with their duties with higher morale.
For example, President Bush ordered Dover Air Force Base closed to press and public scrutiny, because this is where the dead soldiers were brought back from Iraq, and he didn’t want the American people to see their sons and daughters coming home in caskets. Unfortunately, such deceit only serves to disrespect the ultimate sacrifice these men and women made, and that can only hurt morale among the living.
How about the 11,000-22,000 American soldiers wounded in Iraq that Bush pretended did not exist? Or the wounded veterans who have been treated abysmally by Washington? Or the massiveincrease in suicides among American soldiers?
If the military brass valued their personnel as much as their secrecy, morale would improve and there would be no shortage of people willing to give their lives to protect our Republic.
I believe that the solution to the growing problem of an understaffed military is not in forcing people who do not want to go to enlist and waive their God-given rights, but rather in reminding all Americans - by actions not words - that our society is worth preserving for its own merits. This will not be accomplished by a compulsory draft and in any case, I would prefer our youth remain here in our country, to defend it if needed, rather than enlist and be sent away to foreign shores while our own borders are left unsecured.
