I was in the last draft lottery in the last days of the Vietnam conflict. My number was “14″, so….

I also honor our brave young folks in any free nation’s military. I guess it’s from reading Heinlein, and esp. Starship Troopers, that I’ve come to think that we here in America should have “enfranchisement”, namely that, in order to vote, one must have served a term of service to the nation.

That wouldn’t mean military service; there are hundreds of ways voluntary service could be utilized, from working in our national parks or working to create affordable housing…the list is endless, actually.

All of our rights would be the same, service or not, but only the right to vote. I think our country would be run much better if the people who cared were the ones who made the decisions (i.e., voting for our reps.)

The draft has been a hot topic for a couple of years in my political forum. No one has written anything to convince me we need one.

I was in college in ’74 and decided I really didn’t want to go back and contacted a Marine recruiter. I did everything but take the oath, was going to go into Officer’s Training. (yikes)

A friend of a guy in my unit would come over and visit him; they’d play a running game of Risk that would last for weeks sometimes. Funny thing, this guy was anything but military, a big ol’ boy, a hippy wannabe.

Which was funnier still because his dad was a Marine lifer, a colonel who was just about to retire after being in for 25 yrs. His son told him about me fixin’ to join the Marines and the next day he told me “Dad is coming down to visit and he wants to meet you.”

I figured he’d tell me he was proud of me for selecting his service and all of that, but instead he shook my hand, took me aside and cautioned me against joining, esp. at that point in time.

His reasoning was, the main reason at least, was that the Marines were still full of draftees and the Corps was a mess, rampant drug use and racial tension. He explained to me how he thought it would be better in the future, but it’d take a couple of years, plus it depended upon which political party was in power.

I’ve regretted NOT joining the Marines, but I feel deep-down that the Col. was correct.

Back to the draft: I know that whether I was drafted or had enlisted, I certainly wouldn’t want to have to stake my life on someone who certainly didn’t want to be there and resented it.

If my country truly needed me and would take such an old fart, I’d join up, help out the best I could.

I wouldn’t have the audacity to comment on Cyprus because I’m a (little l) libertarian with my Texas nature of minding my own “bidness”. I also wouldn’t comment because I know very little about the country, typical ignorant American who thinks the world revolves around the good ol’ US of A.

I did spend an hour the other day in my GoogleEarth app., looking around the lovely countryside. (I spent today looking at where my pal Annie from NZ lives) Got to do a post in ToTG about all of this, I think.

Cyprus is a wondeful country for many reasons , but I have to say they are quite backwards in some areas , oh its such a shame a lot of the clever young men are loosing a couple of precious years doing nothing much at all serving the ‘Cyprus Military” oh I could go on and on about some of the experiences I have had trying to communicate with the Misnstry of Defence ! but as Chester has said they are so narrow minded ….amongst other things which I better not say here …..Anyhow iim not giving up the fight to get a postponement or preferably exemption for JM and will fight to the end to help him get out of it and go to Uni as soon as possible so say some prayers for us , we need them.