2019-10-21_Time

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Who gets drafted has

always been just as

important as whether

or not there is a draft

W. Gifford, who had been killed in Afghani-

stan a couple of weeks before, to Arlington

National Cemetery. His coffin was loaded on

a caisson, a riderless horse trailing behind,

just like that day with my daughter. I was

sitting shotgun while my friend T— drove.

I’d known Gifford

awhile, the two of

us having served in

the same special-

operations unit, but

Gifford and T— had

been closer friends.

As T— stared across

the Potomac, to the

lunchtime hustle of

downtown Washington, he was angry, “Not a

single person out there cares that Giff ’s dead.

They don’t even know.”

“Is what it is,” I said, affecting the doomy

pragmatism fashionable among professional

soldiers of that time.

T—, however, was less sanguine. “F-ck it,

man. I’m for a draft,” he said while gazing past

the river, as if with those words alone he might

condemn all those oblivious civilians to a year-

long tour in Helmand province.

T— was the consummate professional. He’d

deployed as a special operator in Afghanistan,

Iraq and several other war zones. If anyone be-

lieved in the sanctity of the all- volunteer mili-

tary, it should have been him. So he couldn’t be

serious. Could he imagine how we’d perform

with our ranks filled with draftees. “We’d suck

at fighting,” I said.

And he answered, “I’m not sure we need to

be as good at this as we are.”

At the time it surprised me to hear the most

seasoned military professional I knew call for a

draft. But it shouldn’t have. That day we’d been

fighting for more than a decade and were poised

to fight on for at least another. The profession-

als across the river rushing to lunches while we

buried Giff infuriated T—. Their indifference

fueled these wars. As a soldier with three kids,

too close to retirement to start a new career,

he could say their indifference was, literally,

killing his friends. And, with each successive

deployment, also threatening to kill him. But

could we blame civilians for their apathy? No

one asked them to care about the wars. How to

make them care? His answer was the draft. It’s

become mine too.

Ackerman is the author of three novels and

the memoir Places and Names: On War,

Revolution, and Returning. He fought in Iraq

and Afghanistan as a Marine

<

KYLIE MURPHY, 18

NORTON, MASS.

“My grandfather was
in the Marine infantry.
But I’m not sure exactly
what he did. Until now,
I never thought to ask...
Growing up, I never
knew we were at war.
I feel more mature being
a Marine. I feel like
my own person now.”