"Society is set up in such a way that it's the poor and the uneducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters" (112), Jack Gladney tells his wife, Babette in Don DeLillo's White Noise, in trying to reassure her that their family will not be affected by the "Airborne Toxic Event," the large amount of toxic chemicals which have recently been released in the air. Jack believes that families who are not among "the poor and the uneducated," are safe from "disasters."While researching my junior theme, I found this to be true when it comes to the "man-made disaster." My question is: Why hasn't America had a military draft in the past thirty years?
Part of the answer to this question is that the military largely recruits economically suffering Americans. This shown in Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, when he captures recruiters for the army approaching high schoolers in Flint, Michigan. This is a town in which the public high schools had a graduation rate of only 54.6% in 2008 (source).Moore also makes a point when talking with Congressman John Tanner in Washington DC about the War in Afghanistan:"There's not that many Congressmen that've got kids over there, and in fact, only one." Moore makes the point that affluent families are not being affected by the war nearly as much as poor families.
When there was draft, every family in our country felt the weight of war, not just the "poor and the uneducated"ones. How does this affect your opinion on whether or not America should have a draft?
Great post Sarah. As you know, I have a lot of interest in this topic and have written a couple of posts about this same topic. And while I agree that the military's population only draws from certain socio-economic areas, I don't know that a draft would fix that. So many of the rich and the super-rich would find ways to avoid the draft, one way or another. Another big thing issue regarding the topic of re-implimenting the draft is that that would mean the military would no longer be volunteer based. Whether, that's a good thing or bad thing, it surely would have some effect on the morale of the military.
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