Paul Nichols

To the editor,

Recent news reports announcing a greatly reduced active-duty military enlistment option is very telling as to just how bankrupt the Bush warmongering policies have become. He or she can now sign up for a fifteen-month period, which could include combat in wars in any number of places.

At the beginning of 2003, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld remarked that in past wars draftees were of "no value, no advantage, really, to the United States Armed Forces over any sustained period of time." After furious outrage from veterans, families of draftees who were killed or wounded in battle, and several national veterans organizations, Rumsfeld gulped hard and issued a Rumspin-type apology. His point, he claimed, was that tours of duty should be lengthened to assure that highly trained servicemen and women could actively serve in their specific assignments for extended periods, not just a couple of years. The new fifteen-month option ruling seems to lay bare a contradiction!

Those of us who were directly affected by the draft in the 1960s acutely understand that the two years of active duty were followed by a four-year obligation in the Reserves....that is, if the draftee survived his "tour" in Vietnam in a condition fit for the Reserves. As the senseless Vietnam war dragged on, potential draftees balked by the tens of thousands.

In 2005 there is no legislated draft, but sign-ups for the military have been rapidly declining for justifiable reasons. Recruiters are under pressure to snag inductees. The ripple effect is hammering families with high school aged kids, especially in lower income areas and within minority communities.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and a scad of others have gotten us into a gigantic mess in Iraq. And Afghanistan. Within a fifteen month active duty enlistment, we could be at war with other nations. This new shortened enlistment enticer is likely a lure with a hidden "stop-loss" set of hooks.

Paul Nichols

Loudon