Free Republic

A column of mine on this same topic, the military draft, was published in the St. Petersburg Times on Sept. 29, 1999. The headline was "Military service should be mandatory." Again, we should bring back the draft. I was inspired to return to this subject because of the furor John Kerry created the other day when, while addressing students in Los Angeles, he lamely joked about George W. Bush's incuriosity and intellectual deficits, saying, "Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do...

There is quite a brouhaha in South Carolina politics this week as we let You Decide 2004. It’s all over a voter registration mailer that seems to suggest if you don’t vote, you might get drafted. The United States has the largest volunteer military in the world. Mostly young people go to recruiting stations to either serve their country or reap the education benefits. But mention a draft--and it gets a lot of people going. The democrats managed to do exactly that this summer. It may have come as a surprise in your mailbox, and an unpleasant one. When you...