Thank God I’m comfortably overage, and I’m glad not to get unnecessarily worked up about things like this since I remember the same thing being suggested in Iraq in the Bush administration (isn’t it interesting how much his image has been rehabilitated by (a) keeping quiet except to be gentlemanly, and (b) not being Donald Trump. It’s interesting how many former Bushies are in the anti-Trump coalition – it was a (fatally) idealistic, moderate, even in places – Medicare Part D, proposed immigration reform, commitment to liberal democracy and the international order, a new cabinet department – left-leaning philosophy in an untested new world, in some ways if you throw out the militarism, like Nixon.)

But about the draft – Charlie Rangel (D-Harlem, famously and self-promotingly a Korean War vet) proposed the same thing every year, so it’s not quite what it seems on its face. When there’s a draft, America gets into far fewer wars when voters and parents have skin in the game. A professional military is out-of-sight-out-of-mind, reflects a certain, often undesirable, type rather than the American people broadly; and removes voters and lawmakers from the consequences of their votes. An all-volunteer army can be politically imbalanced and fosters lotalty to a charismatic commander and his party over the nation – remember the soldiers hooting and hollering at Trump’s campaign rally at Fort Bragg? The shift from the citizenry to a professional army eventually helped end the Roman Empire. If I were doing the entire thing from scratch, I’d put post-high-school compulsory national military service. You could say it doesn’t help the Israelis, but they live in a powderkeg. We’re protected by two oceans and two large, friendly countries on our borders.

In any case, if I were 20 I would be freaking out just like I was in 2005 or whenever, which is yet another reason I’m glad I’m not young today. My best friend – who in exchange for a tour in Baghdad is currently working on his third master’s, all with the GI Bill, before it expires, making me almost wish I had been able to join up – says he’d rather be young than wise; fuck that. He’s big and fat so he has bad joints. Since I lost my job I went from 195 to 235, and that ain’t muscle, so maybe I’m not far off, erp, just I feel as healthy and pain-free as when I was 25.