Fear makes fantastic news. Everyone reads it and everyone is influenced by it. This ideology dates way back to the Spanish-American War, where the Yellow Journalism movement caused thousands of Americans to advocate for war, without taking time to read the subtext and wonder: “is this the full truth?”. This is just the case with the recent outbreak on the supposed third world war.
For those living under a rock, Trump recently ordered a missile strike on Iran, killing General Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force. The announcement of this strike hit the internet like a freight train. News articles flooded the internet, memes on the possibility of World War 3 dominated the social media landscape, and WW3 became the #1 trending tag on Twitter. With such an influx of “coverage,”, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine fact from fiction, and rumors of a draft have started to form genuine fear for some young Americans.
However, if people take a moment to breathe, the smoke begins to clear andto reveals a small ember. Let me be clear, I am in no way supporting the actions of the Trump Administration, I’m simply trying to air out some concerns. For starters, in order to have a World War, more than one country has to be involved. At the moment, this is a conflict between Iran and the United States. Although it’s possible the conflict could escalate and spread to different countries, it’s not very likely. Secondly, war today is greatly different than war 50 years ago. There seems to be less of a focus on man on man combat, and more on who has the bigger missile. That’s not to say that manpower is absolutely worthless, but the demand has significantly decreased.
Even if a draft were to be implemented, the process has changed drastically since the Vietnam War. Before 1971, the Selective Service would draft men between the ages of 18 1/2 and 25, the eldest being drafted first. Nowadays, the draft is based on a lottery system. At age 20, all United States males are placed in the first-priority draft. Each following year, they are moved lower and lower on the priority scale, until they reach the age where they are removed from the draft. It isn’t just a matter of dropping every male between the ages of 18 and 25 into a battlefield.
War is a very touchy subject, and the mere mention of it can strike fear into the hearts of many. That is why it is important to stay knowledgeable on the subject, so that if we enter a time of war, all the facts are completely straight. There’s no way to say for certain what the future holds, so all we can do is wait and hope.
