No Reason To Fear Military Draft (Stop Scaring Kids)

by Kerry Thomas

September 17, 2004

Last Spring college students across America began hearing rumors of an impending military draft. Once again, in the heat of this election cycle, those rumors are once more being circulated. Depending on your source, they say this draft is either going to start in January or Jun 2005. And this time these rumors claim that somehow President Bush is behind it.

It ain't gonna happen.

The evidence commonly cited for this fear is legislation in the Congress, a bill called the "Universal National Service Act of 2003." This legislation was introduced in both the U.S. Senate (S. 89) and the House (H.R. 163) on January 7, 2003. In the Senate the bill was read twice and referred to the Committee on Armed Services. In the House it was referred to the House Committee on Armed Services on January 7, 2003 and then Executive comment was requested from DOD and the bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Total Force on February 3, 2003.

No further action has taken place on either bill. Only one Senator and 14 Representatives support the legislation.

In other words, it ain't gonna happen.

[For reference, the current status of H.R. 163 can be found at http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR00163:@@@L&summ2=m& Status of S. 89 can be found at http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN00089:@@@X.]

It is rather interesting to see just who the sponsors of these bills are. In the Senate, the bill was introduced by Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina. He has no co-sponsors.

In the House the bill was introduced by Representatives Charlie Rangel (NY), Jim McDermott (WA), John Conyers (MI), John Lewis (GA), Fortney Pete Stark (CA), and Neil Abercrombie (HI). It has since gained the support of Connie Brown (FL), William Lacy Clay, Jr. (MO), Elijah Cummings (MD), Alcee Hastings (FL), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX), Jim Moran (VA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), and Nydia Velazquez (NY). All are Democrats.

I guess mandatory military service for everyone is the Democrat way of looking out for the "little guys" they always claim to champion.