So, the government is reconstituting local draft boards. But, of course, officials say there are no plans to begin conscription again for the first time in 30 years. And remember, they are not draft boards, they're Selective Service boards.

We'll see. Our volunteer military is being drained in Iraq; and that's with the help of the reserves and the National Guard. We are obviously not going to be getting out of Iraq any time soon, and there might be more nations to overrun. There is still a lot of evil out there.

For now we will have to take the word of the Selective Service System, which insists that "both the president and the secretary of defense have stated on several occasions that a draft is not needed for the war on terrorism, including Iraq."

It really comes down to whether the president and his war council (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) will be given another four years to make the world safe for their interests. A draft would not be a popular move, but you never know, after the election ...

From a practical stance, a draft would be good for the United States. It potentially would place millions more young people on the front lines. Many of them wouldn't like that and their parents wouldn't like it either. Suddenly there would be vigorous anti-war and anti-draft movements.

Supina, quoted above, was a graduate student at Boston University. Because of his decision to refuse military service, he spent four years in prison. He was one of 4,000 jailed for avoiding the draft during the Vietnam War. Another 10,000 went underground or fled the country, out of a total of 25,000 indicted for draft evasion.

Conscription in this country dates from the earliest days of the Revolutionary War, when men who felt no compulsion to fight the British were forced into service — unless they had the money to buy a substitute or pay their way out with a lump sum.

There were anti-draft riots during the Civil War, and tens of thousands refused to serve during each of the two world wars. Many of those were imprisoned.

During the Vietnam era, a draft was already in effect, so it was just a matter of increasing quotas to keep enough troops rotating in and out of Southeast Asia, Germany and other front lines of the Cold War.

I knew people, opposed to the war, who were drafted, felt a duty to serve their country and were killed in Vietnam. I knew people who joined the Air Force or Navy to avoid the draft; some didn't come back and others did, but they were not the same people they were when they left.

I also knew people who did their tours in Vietnam and came back to do everything they could to help others avoid the draft.

As the anti-war movement became more intense during the late 1960s, a form of protest for many was burning their draft cards. It was usually done during an anti-war protest. I didn't burn mine; it was buried at sea in a ceremony without much fanfare.

The law at that time said you had to have your draft card with you at all times, and destroying one was destroying government property. So they could get you for two offenses. They got many people. They never got me, though.

I didn't get drafted, either, because I had a student deferment. They had the first draft lottery in early 1970, a year in which I transferred from one college to another. My lottery number came up, I got my 1-A and was ordered to report for a physical. I appealed and packed a bag — but not for the service. I was back in school before they got around to ruling, and my deferment was restored.

They've changed the rules since then. The next draft will use a lottery and 20-year-olds will be first to go. There will be no student deferments. If you're in college when your number's called, you get to finish the semester before reporting.

Some say it's more equitable without student deferments. I say, recalling the widespread anti-war movement on campuses in the Vietnam era, it's because the best way to avoid that occurring again would be to draft students.

Will we have a new generation of young men chanting "hell no, we won't go" to a unjust wars of aggression?

Of course not. According to Selective Service, the active recruiting of local draft boards the last few years is just routine and has nothing to do with international events.

But you never know, after the election ...

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Cary Brunswick is managing editor of The Daily Star.