Posted on 08/10/2004 9:59:23 AM PDT by demlosers
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Most U.S. high-school students believe the government will restart the military draft during their lifetimes, and shrinking numbers are optimistic about the country's future, a new poll finds.
Among teenagers, 55 percent say young Americans will be required to serve in the military, up from 45 percent last year, according to "The State of Our Nation's Youth," an annual survey by the Horatio Alger Association.
During the year between polls - May 2003 to May 2004 - U.S. casualties mounted during attacks in Iraq even after President Bush declared on May 1, 2003, that major combat had ended.
Former President Nixon halted the draft in 1973. Pentagon leaders and numerous generals and admirals have said it should not be resumed because the volunteer military is more efficient. Critics including Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry have accused the Pentagon of engaging in a "backdoor draft" to compensate for manpower shortages in Iraq with wholesale mobilizations National Guard and Reserve units and other retention tactics.
In the poll, respondents were asked their views of a mandatory military service requirement of two years, and 70 percent of students were opposed.
Still, more young people than not said the United States was right to go to war in Iraq. The poll found 44 percent said the decision was correct, 33 percent said it was wrong, and the rest had no opinion or were unsure.
The students' outlook for the country was dimmer this year, but it remained relatively high, as 68 percent said they were hopeful. That was down from 75 percent last year.
More than two-thirds of students said they care who wins the presidential race, but two-thirds also said they have not closely followed news reporting about the race.
The Horatio Alger Association, which provides college scholarships to needy students, issued its report Tuesday. Results are based on a telephone poll of 1,007 students in grades nine to 12 at the time of the survey, taken May 5 to 7. The students ranged in age from 13 to 19, although most were 15 to 17.
The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
imagine Carl Levin as sec'y of defense, Jane Harmon at CIA or as nation security advisor, Jaime Gorelick as Atty General, Sandy Berger as Secy of State.
That team, along with Kerry, a blantant liar regarding his own military service - does not have the moral authority to lead the country in my opinion - so I wouldn't blame someone in the military from not wanting to give their life to help them.
It will and the Dems will need a draft.
I have communicated with high schoolers from across the U.S., a few of them, and an unfair sampling since I come into contact with them in political forums discussing issues of the day, and while most of them are liberal - that can be understood. They are only products of their education. A few of them come out of high school hard core conservatives and pro-military.
The trend is for many of those high schoolers to become conservative at some point after graduation. And facing a determined enemy is often a very convincing force for conversion from liberal to conservative.
...Joe Wilson as UN ambassador, Hillary Clinton as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court...The list of potential atrocities goes on forever.
"Can most hihg sckoolers read?"
Some can even spell.
The Bush administration and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had made it clear that they do NOT favor a draft and that they are meeting recruiting quotas.
If anyone re-instates the draft it will be a democrat.
Heck, I always thought i'd get lucky in High School, but we'll leave that to the imagination.
And we know that high schoolers know everything.
Yes, mine can read very well, thank you, and they also think there will be a draft.
Our high schoolers are very conservative (more so than I am in some ways); they are pro-military but they are anti-draft.
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