While most pollsters would agree that there is almost no discernable support for reinstating the military draft, why should the public support the military's policy of forcing exhausted those who already have fulfilled their contractual obligation to serve into an open-ended term of indentured -- potentially fatal -- military servitude? Yet that is exactly what is happening to people such as Oregon Army National Guardsman Sgt. Emiliano Santiago, 27, of Pasco, Wash. Last Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Owen M. Panner denied Santiago's motion for a preliminary injunction against having to report again for active duty, less than a week before Santiago is scheduled to ship to Fort Sill, Okla. A soldier with D Company of the Oregon Guard's 113th Aviation Battalion in Pendleton, he is and his unit are expected to be deployed to Afghanistan in February. Santiago argued that he already had completed his contracted term in 2002, but Panner's ruling means that he will have to go. And he is only one of thousands who are finding themselves back in uniform despite having honorably completed the service they signed on for. This is possible because of an executive order President Bush enacted after 9-11 that authorized the Pentagon to involuntarily extend military personnel on active duty "for not more than 24 consecutive months." But the military has gone further in Santiago's case. He originally signed for an eight-year tour with the Guard in 1996, but as a result of the "stop-loss" back-door draft, his service has been extended to December 2031, when he would be 54. [more]
- No draft! No way! [more]