Prospect of mandatory service is a concern

For readers who have children graduating from high school this month, perhaps you’re breathing a sigh of relief — especially if your child has been accepted to college, you’re able to fund it, and you’re watching them take their first steps into a successful, happy future.

Take another deep breath, and don’t exhale so fast; there is pending legislation in the House and Senate that will reinstate a mandatory military draft as early as June 2005, and, unlike the Vietnam War days we recall, neither college students nor women will be exempt.

Maybe you believe in mandatory national service to country from every citizen; but be aware that bills S-89 and HR-163 will not give our children the choice of civilian or military service. It will require that both men and women, ages 18-26, report as early as June 2005 for service of the government’s choosing, which is very likely to be military in nature.

While our attention has been focused on the elections, more than $28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System budget in preparation for a military draft that, once these bills pass, is scheduled to start as early as June 2005. So confident is the admin-istration of the passage of these bills that the Pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.

If this is not the future you envision for your children, we as New Jersey constituents must write, call, e-mail or fax our congress people now to urge them to oppose these bills.

This is perhaps one of the most important decisions our legislators will make this year — quite literally a matter of life and death for our children.

Let your congress people know that you are aware of this bill and urge them to oppose it at all costs. Even if you do believe in mandatory national service, tell them that you want your children to have a choice in how they will be required to serve.

While your children are walking down the aisle with pomp and circumstance, know that it is the steps you take now that will determine where they ultimately end up. It’s up to you to ensure that tears of pride and joy are the only kind you will have to shed for your children, or anyone else’s.

Rhonda Uretzky

Marlboro