Wednesday, February 5, 2020 // The Statement
2B
Managing Statement Editor
Magdalena Mihaylova
Deputy Editors
Emily Stillman
Marisa Wright
Associate Editor
Reece Meyhoefer
Designers
Liz Bigham
Kate Glad
Copy Editors
Madison Gagne
Sadia Jiban
Photo Editor
Keemya Esmael
Editor in Chief
Elizabeth Lawrence
Managing Editor
Erin White
N
o good college seduction routine
would be complete without a
pre-coital ideological disagree-
ment. One October night, I cozied into
the well-decorated attic of a friend who
serenaded me by playing the bass before
broaching the topic of conscription, a sub-
ject which, until recently, seemed largely
obsolete in the post-interstate-war world.
He said to me that being forced to sign up
for the draft when he turned 18 seemed
like a good system: While he otherwise
would not have, he felt if the country called
on him to go to war, he would do so gladly.
I pressed him about the causes for which
he would be willing to fight violently and
he could list none. Blind acceptance of the
country’s demands — for which we are
offered no justification — reveals that we
are overdue for a paradigm shift in the per-
ception of the value we carry for our coun-
try and our world.
For many, the choice to serve in the mil-
itary is born of fiscal need: Students and
young people from lower socioeconomic
statuses put their own Americanist ideals
of individualism on hold while they serve
their the country. In the armed forces,
they exchange their time — and poten-
tially their lives — for future fiscal spon-
sorship to attend college or own a home.
For many, education and property are pipe
dreams that make the military compelling
or necessary. At my former public high
school where matriculation rates were
low, it was common to see my peers sign
up for military service. Recruiters from
the Army, Air Force and Navy stationed
tables around our cafeteria for weeks on
end. They selected students to do pull-ups
on the bars and rewarded them with glam-
orous pamphlets of honor and glory.
Those peers of mine who did not have
the opportunity to go to college — due pri-
marily to financial limitations — had to lis-
ten quietly while the rest of us talked about
our futures. While I and others planned to
go to college and daydreamed about the
careers we would pursue, others in my
class prepared nothing beyond graduation.
When they emotionlessly chose to join the
armed forces, I wondered
if it was a choice at all. If
all options were equally
available to each of us,
how many would choose
to endure the hardships of
military service. Knowing
that the resources spent
on defense could instead
provide for the education
of America’s young people,
the coercion underlying
military servitude becomes
evident. If a choice is made
with coercion, is it really a
choice?
Suppose, in examining
the justice of conscription,
we exclude those who have
been coerced into service.
I have to imagine for all
those who are coerced in
some manner to join the
military, there exists a sig-
nificant number who join
not from need, but from
desire. Some feel indebted
to the public services the
country has provided. In
looking to reciprocate all
they’ve been given by the
nation, many turn to offer
themselves to it, believing that
if they must give up their lives so that the
country can persist, it will be the least they
could offer. I have respect for veterans and
understand the inclination to give our-
selves in servitude. Those willing to make
the ultimate sacrifice for their country and
its people deserve, in fact, to be treated far
better by that country than they are.
But what if the country made no such
demands on its people? What if, instead,
the way we served a country was by serv-
ing its people? What if we were not asked
to lay down our lives, but simply to live
them to their fullest — leaving behind
contributions to the nation in the form of
ideas, families, art or scientific discover-
ies? What if the country called upon us
to contribute daily to causes beyond our-
selves? And what if the value of our lives
was not measured in their cessation? That
is to say: Can’t the country respect our
potential contributions without robbing us
of our chance to fulfill them? A painting,
the creation of a new vaccine, the cleaning
of a national park or the teaching of young
people are each productive contributions
one could provide, or value, in the nation.
Recently, a Swiss friend came to visit me
and laughed about his trip being made pos-
sible by his exemption from the required
military service he would otherwise
have to enlist in. I scoffed. Switzerland
is known for its neutrality! In what army
would all of its young people serve? They
had a choice, he told me, between milita-
rism and civil services: Two years in the
military could be exchanged for lifelong,
occasional assistance on fire services,
flood damage repairs and other emergency
responses to natural disasters. His choice
of civil service provision should have been
obvious. “I mean, can you picture me hold-
ing a gun?”
Conscription is, by accident or force of
habit, a topic of conversation I often have
with my friends from around the globe,
one which has shown me how non-ubiq-
uitously the armed forces are approached
in distinct nations of the world. Refram-
ing the notion of servitude to focus on the
ways we create and care for one another
each day is nothing more than a respect
for life from our nation to us, just as we’re
promised.
statement
THE MICHIGAN DAILY | FEBRUARY 5, 2020
BY EMILY RUSSELL, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
Making new sacrifices for our
country
ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE FAN