That's by the Army's standards. The word "slacker" (can't remember where I read it) comes from WWI. It was used to describe soldiers who refused to run out in front of the machine guns. It might be a sign of creeping civilization that people aren't interested in war as much. We tend to think back on the Russian soldiers and French soldiers who threw down their weapons in WWI and went back to their farms as, what's the word, unmanly cowards, when in fact they may have been the only sensible people around. In Jane Austin's time and until not too long ago, marrying an officer was quite the accomplishment. Even the young adult books for girls as recently as mid-20th century portrayed marrying a West Point cadet as the goal. Does West Point still have that mystique? Is Anita Bryant still around? Can't hang on to the past, and maybe that's a good thing. I suspect even the Arabs, tiny jihadist minorities notwithstanding, wouldn't be interested in war if we hadn't rekindled this thing called crusade. Now we're pushing the Iranians into war. Hopefully there will be more and more slackers ... -----Original Message----- >From: Andreas Ramos <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx> >Sent: Mar 20, 2007 1:28 AM >To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> >Subject: [lit-ideas] Okay, Eric doesn't have to go! > >To stabalize Iraq, the USA needs 500,000 troops on the ground. > >This requires a draft, but the occupation's cheerleaders know better than to >call for a >draft, especially when Army studies found 73% of America's youth to be >"morally, >intellectually or physically" ineligible for recruitment. > >http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/ATrecruitsurvey070308/ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html