www.stopthedraft.com

Please visit http://www.stopthedraft.com/ . You will have access there to articles that have been published re the US gov't's plans to reinstate the draft. Visit http://thomas.loc.gov/ and type "national service" in the search box and hit "Search". The first two hits will be the two bills on the House and Senate describing the "National Service" plan to make all 18-to-25-year-olds required to perform "national service" for two years, presumably mostly military service but also other kinds as determined by the authorities.

While these bills make females subject to the draft, they also allow the gov't to determine how people will serve the country, either in military or non-military roles. You can be quite sure that women will not be required to don uniforms in the same number as men, nor will they be required/expected to go into combat. Do you think any of these coffins hold women, and if they do, do they hold nearly as many women as men? If men do not stand up against this, it is us who will lose our own lives, freedoms (what we have of them), and watch our sons, nephews, and grand-sons have to deal with this situation. If we do not stand up for ourselves, who will?Those of us with teen-aged children/relatives need especially to be very concerned with this development, as well as anyone under the age of, I'd say, 22. There is bi-partisan support for this in the Congress and the only person of administrative rank and real policy influence in the current administration who really opposes it is Sec'y of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, only because he feels conscripts are more trouble than they are worth. But he can be persuaded and I predict he will be as long as US military retention rates drop and morale sags, and/or the war in Iraq continues to get more intense.

I predict the vote on the two "National Service" bills will come at latest in January 2005, perhaps before then (but after November when the elections are over). Both GW and John Kerry have endorsed this idea. Historically when the president has asked for conscription, he has gotten it. Both of the major candidates support it. It will happen - unless the people make it clear it won't be tolerated.

Please get busy with this, contacting your legislators on state and federal levels (use http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ to look up contact info.), if you do not want to see young Americans forced to serve in the armed forces. If you do, then do nothing, for most assuredly it will happen if you don't.

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