Mythical stories of young soldiers disappearing across the border into Canada, in search of freedom from conscription, are the relics of the Vietnam era — or are they?  As The New York Times reported yesterday, a small group of currently enlisted men and women are seeking conscientious objector status, or seeking refuge across the United States’ northern border.  The difference for this generation of soldiers, however, is one of choice; all currently enlisted United States military are volunteers.

The Peace Out website, created by a group of veterans who successfully obtained conscientious objector status, received more than 3,000 hits its first day. No doubt, these numbers are due in part to conflicted sentiment over current armed combat in Iraq, but rather than see them merely as a reflection of as this, the Times article prompts us to question the stark differences between our military’s recruiting campaign, and the realities of life under fire. Soldiers recruited in peacetime,
and lured with the promises of steady employment and college education, did not expect to find themselves in combat in a country nine time zones away.

“It wasn’t what I thought it would be,” Private Hughey said. He said he enlisted at 17 from his home in San Angelo, Texas, because a recruiter promised that the military would buy him the education his father could not afford. He said he had tried to push aside little doubts he had, even back in basic training, but realized as his unit prepared to leave Fort Hood, Texas, for Iraq last March that he could not go.”

Current gossip mongering about the possibility of reinstating the draft obscures the embarrassing need to question the armed forces’ demographics. For our generation of soldiers, volunteering has grown scarily similar to conscription.

llouison