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approved its new policy, and I argued that it was

the military’s job— particularly that of my own

service branch, the Marine Corps, which began

implementation at a stubborn pace—to execute

and support that policy, regardless of reserva-

tions. A retired Marine colonel in the audience

became incensed. He stood, prodding: on aver-

age, women weren’t as

strong as men. Could I

deny this? No. Men and

women were often sexu-

ally attracted to one an-

other. Could I deny this?

Also no. Then how could

I argue for integration

when it would so clearly

degrade our ability to fight and win wars?

I replied that our military didn’t exist solely

to fight and win our wars. Our military was also

a representation of us.

The colonel then turned to the crowd and, as if

to prove his point, announced that if we took all

the women in the room and pitted them against

all the men in a “fight to the death,” everyone

knew who would win.

The idea that the military exists solely to fight

and win our nation’s wars is as juvenile as the

colonel challenging the audience to throw down.

Might makes right is not the policy of the U.S.

government, or at least shouldn’t be. If our mili-

tary doesn’t represent our values, it can threaten

to undermine them. The Founding Fathers un-

derstood this. Their revolution relied on citizen

soldiers, and they were suspicious of standing

armies. It’s a suspicion we’ve since shrugged off.

the concern about degrading our military’s ca-

pabilities through a draft is legitimate. Conscrip-

tion has only ever been used in this country to

augment a core force of volunteers, and often to

great effect. Our World War II military was 61.2%

conscripted. In Vietnam, it was 25%. The ques-

tion then becomes: Could you introduce a certain

number of conscripts into the all- volunteer mili-

tary at a lower rate without a meaningful degra-

dation in its capability? And what would that rate

be? Ten percent (130,000 people), 5% (65,000

people), 1% (13,000 people)—and would those

numbers be meaningful?

What would be most meaningful might not ac-

tually be the number of individuals drafted, but

the specter of the draft itself. The idea that citizen-

ship has a cost, that you owe something to society.

Which leads to the question of who owes what?

One of the central criticisms of the Vietnam-

era draft was that it drew disproportionately from

those of low socioeconomic backgrounds, while

the children of the wealthy and influential were

The military is also

one of our great engines

of societal mobility

<

ALEJANDRO

FARCIERTMEJIA, 17

BRONX, N.Y.

“I have a personal
experience with 9/11.
Because of 9/11, I was
almost a miscarriage.
Those events scared
my mother, and her
blood pressure shot
up. Because of this,
I wound up being born
prematurely and ended
up in an incubator.
That shouldn’t have to
happen to anyone else.”