by Foxbaron

Created on: July 26, 2008

One of the writers to this subject asked, "Do I need to serve my Country?" That is an extremely difficult decision to make if you have never served before and are well into your own life with a wife and children, mortgage and everything else life hits you with.

It would be an uncommon man that would enlist in the armed forces when his life, career and family are all in place already. I do not know if it would be fair to ask him to serve at this stage in his life as he has responsibilities to his family that can not be dismissed lightly.

I would suspect that the majority of those currently serving made the decision to join prior to their being married or starting a family or a career, or their joining the military was an option they weighed heavily before signing up.

That is why I believe that military service should be mandatory for all males at eighteen years of age or graduation from high school for a period of at least three years. No college deferments, unless upon graduation from college, they serve a minimum of five years as an Officer.

I also believe that no male should be exempt, regardless of their physical condition. The military can always find a job you can do, trust me on this one.

With our elimination of the draft and the change to the all volunteer army it seems to me that we gave people the option to ignore their responsibility to this country. I believe every male has an obligation to serve their country in some capacity.

We keeping asking the same people to make sacrifices on our behalf and then we send them back out again. We are also asking their families, their wives and children to make sacrifices on our behalf and we do little to support them while their husband or father is off fighting on our behalf. We can not continue to do this. It is not fair to them, their families or to the rest of us. We can not continue to ask the same individuals to bear the burden for us because we are afraid of a draft. Sooner or later they will get tired of this and we will not have anyone left to fight our wars and protect our Country.

It is time we all started to step to the plate and shoulder our responsibilities to our Country and our fellow citizens.

It makes no sense to require those with families to disrupt their lives at this time when we have plenty of uncommitted youths available but I also think it would be a good idea to maybe have these individuals who have never served be required to join the National Guard so we have a ready reserve in case they

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