> I was just wondering why some of you people
> weren't interested. Was it a personal situation
> or was it you did't want any personal risk?

- I think there are things I could do with my life that would be more beneficial to me than military service, where I would be trained and then basically sit around waiting for a war to start.

- I don't like the idea of killing people, and I would probably have a big problem with handling wartime gore.

- I don't want to cut my hair.

- I want a better income than what a military service would provide, and I want to live in the same house for more than a couple of years at a time.

- Honestly, I am somewhat cowardly. I'm scared of military training and its intense harshness, I'm scared of what kind of person I would become, and, most importantly, I'm scared of being killed. This is of course not a noble reason for not joining the military at all, but it's my biggest reason for not wanting to join the military.

I'm not a pacifist. It would be nice if everyone could just get along and there would be no more fighting, but that's not going to happen, and it's irrational to stubbornly pretend it will and refuse military service on those grounds.

I'm also not going to make the argument that I have better ways of serving the country. I don't have a job, which means I don't pay taxes, so the only income the government makes from me is occasional sales tax and library overdue fines (I'm getting better at turning my books in, though. Really.). If I tried hard and worked hard for a long time I might be able to make a lot of money and thus help the economy (however minutely), but my intent in doing so wouldn't be Help The Economy or Serve My Country, it would be Make A Lot Of Money. That, coupled with the fact that in wartime pretty much everything helps the war effort, is why I'm not making the "better ways of serving the country" argument (which is not to say that it is not a good argument in general; it just doesn't apply to me all that well).

Also, if every person in the country except married women and people with physical disabilities is in the military, that leaves a lot of extra work for those people to do, and proportionally there's no way all of them could do all of it. Also, it would force the Government to try and come up with things for all these new recruits to do. There aren't enough tasks in the military for a hundred fifty million people* to do.

So I'll stay out of the military if it's all the same to you. And even if it isn't.

-Eric Sleator
Wed 3 July A.D. 2002

*I guessed on this number. Anyone have any information on the number of American citizens who are either able-bodied men or able-bodied single women?