Here's an article I posted in the "drafted" thread last weekend. It speaks to the e-mail you received specifically and addresses some of the points made in what you posted.

Keith


Saturday, September 25, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

Fears of draft reinstatement persist despite official denials

By Wayne Woolley
Newhouse News Service
NEWARK, N.J. — The phones at the Selective Service System ring more frequently these days. Some callers are nothing short of hysterical.

Officials at the federal agency that would be responsible for running any future military draft say they have been receiving thousands of calls in recent months from people who are under the impression that mandatory conscription is imminent for men and women ages 18 to 26.

Janice Hughes, a public- and intergovernmental-affairs specialist with the agency, fielded one call from an American woman calling from Italy on a cellphone. "She heard there would be a draft of women, and she didn't want to come back," Hughes said.

Hughes gave her stock reply: "It's not true. We would know."

The calls keep coming even after repeated assurances from the White House, the Pentagon and Capitol Hill that there is no desire, need or plan for a draft.

That may be because fears the draft will be resurrected after 31 years of dormancy continue to be stoked in Internet chat rooms and chain e-mails. Most recently, on the presidential-campaign trail, surrogates of Democratic candidate John Kerry — former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland — suggested the possibility of a draft if President Bush wins a second term.

At a campaign appearance in Oregon last week, Vice President Dick Cheney said the all-volunteer military remains America's best option and it would take a crisis "on the scale of World War II before I would think that anybody would seriously contemplate the possibility of going back again to the draft."

Kerry flatly opposed a military draft at a campaign stop Wednesday in Florida.

The Vietnam-era draft ended in 1973. The Selective Service System was created in 1980 to keep a database of men ages 18 to 26 in the event of a future draft. Women are not eligible to be drafted under current law.

Barry Zellen, 41, a Boston technical writer who created the Web site StopTheDraft.com in 1999, has watched visits to his site rise. But he gives little credence to current rumors that the government will restart the draft on June 15, 2005.

"The Internet is helping propagate the myth that there is a secret government plan," Zellen said.

The first catalyst came in January 2003, when Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., introduced separate bills calling for draft-age men and women to perform military or civilian government service.

Rep. Jim McDermott of Seattle, one of four Democratic co-sponsors of Rangel's bill, introduced before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, said the legislation was intended to ensure that the burden of military service is not borne disproportionately by the poor and some minority groups.

"I believe that if those who are pushing for war knew that their children might be required to share the burden of that war, there might be a greater willingness to work toward peace and a diplomatic solution," McDermott said at the time. "If, despite our best efforts, we end up in armed conflict, then fairness dictates that the sons and daughters of all classes participate."

Rangel and Hollings also were vocal opponents of the Iraq war, and both conceded that neither bill had a chance of coming to a vote in the Republican-controlled Congress.

The second catalyst came less than a year ago when the Selective Service System issued a call for volunteers to fill vacancies on local draft boards.

Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, said the people propagating the rumors apparently didn't realize that local draft boards have been in place since 1980 — and the roughly 10,000 board members serve 20-year terms, which have expired.

Flahavan said the draft warnings also cite inaccurate government figures. Most of the Internet draft warnings say $28 million has "been added" to the Selective Service System budget this year. That figure actually was the total budget the agency requested this year. Congress approved a $26 million budget.

Most e-mails warning of impending conscription begin with the words: "Mandatory draft for boys and girls (age 18-26) starting June 15, 2005, is something that everyone should know about."

Even members of peace-advocacy groups have grown weary of calls about the rumor.

"That e-mail doesn't die. It's got a lot of inaccuracies in it," said Bill Galvin, a counseling coordinator with the Center on Conscience and War, a conscientious-objectors organization in Washington. "We're getting so tired of answering questions about the stupid thing."

That doesn't mean Galvin is unconcerned that a draft might be a possibility, but he doesn't believe it would unfold in the way Internet rumors predict.

Still, unease persists on college campuses, which have been blanketed by e-mails warning about the draft.

At Rutgers University, Newark, Eugene Heimur said his mother read the e-mail.

"She freaked out," said Heimur, 19, of Rutherford, N.J. "She told me I could get drafted and I was like, 'Are you serious?' It's crazy."

Kenneth Campbell, a University of Delaware political-science professor who served as a combat Marine in Vietnam, said college students would weigh heavily in any political calculus of reinstating a draft.

"A draft would create a firestorm. These campuses would explode," he said. "That's what's kept a lot of kids quiet about Iraq. They weren't under the gun."

Details on McDermott were provided by the House Web site (www.house.gov).

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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