ProgressOhio

New rule: Let's make draft registration mandatory for all 18 year olds.  It's only fair that men and women are treated the same when it comes to serving their country.

Signing up with Selective Service is easy.  When applying to college, it's an automatic procedure for young men.  Otherwise, they fill out a form at the Post Office and receive a Registration Acknowledgment Card.  (They don't call them "draft cards" anymore.  It just sounds flammable.)

Currently, Selective Service laws refer specifically to "male persons" who must register and who would be drafted.  (The last time anyone was conscripted into U.S. military service was in 1972.)  For women to be required to register, Congress would have to amend the law.  The constitutionality of the men-only policy was challenged in the Supreme Court in 1981, and the law was upheld.

Interestingly, according to the government website, "The Selective Service System, if given the mission and additional funding, is capable of registering and drafting women with its existing infrastructure."

Russia and other former Soviet republics require all young people to give a year of service to their country.  Israel mandates men serve for three years in the military; women, two.  Some countries, such as Finland, give citizens the option of serving six months in the military or a year or more in non-military service.  There seems to be diverse international policies on gender and the meaning of "service" to one's homeland.  Not all of us are cut out for "spreading democracy" with automatic weapons, after all.

I don't want your daughters to be drafted as much as I don't want my sons to go to Iraq, Iran or wherever Mad Cowboy gets us quagmired.  But the With-Freedom-Comes-Responsibility argument holds up without gender bias.

When I was 18 in 1974, I wrote the draft board and asked to get a registration card.  I still have their reply letter (which I proudly showed to my high school Civics teacher...easy 'A').  It's from Jean O. Barton, Registrar, Selective Service System at the federal building on Marconi Blvd. in Columbus.  It reads in part:

"Your desire to accept the full responsibilities of citizenship is highly commendable.  Please rest assured that, if Congress should change the law to include females at some future date, we will be most happy to accept your registration at that time."  Gosh, thanks, bureaucrat-lady!

I'm led to believe by this 33-year-old letter that the government thinks women are NOT taking full responsibility for their citizenship as the law currently stands.

I would encourage young women to write their draft boards and young men to pursue this sex discrimination in court.  We are all in this together.  If 18-year-old men have to register, so should women.