Since the meat-grinder days of Vietnam demonstrated to the American people just what the military was capable of when it could conscript all the soldiers it wanted and the public demonstrated their vocal outrage at the draft, the military has been all-volunteer. This makes it dependent upon the will of individual citizens to sign up and agree to the constrictions of military service. In most cases, the recruit is aware or made aware of the structured life, regimented days and nights, and risk of death or injury that they will undertake during their service. Some people find the risks as explained to be acceptable while others do not. The choice of military service remains just that, a choice to be made or not depending on personal factors.

But in today’s war, with over 1700 dead and over 10,000 wounded (read: maimed, most often by losses of limbs due to road-side explosives), the Pentagon has learned that relying on volunteering has its own drawbacks. Every month brings new reports of the recruitment shortfalls by most or all of the branches of the military. The Army is 40 percent short so far, with three months left in the year. The other branches of the military, especially the National Guard, haven’t fared well either, despite the risk to National Guards being “overstated“. So what’s a Pentagon with a war to fight to do?

Introducing the Joint Advertising and Market Research Recruiting Database! Are you between the ages of 16 and 20-something? Have you ever applied for a job? A credit card? Do you have a Social Security number or a driver’s license? Well congratulations, because you’re in! You’ve made the cut. Expect a call from the military anytime soon. Or make that multiple calls. And letters. And more calls. And more letters. Maybe, if you’re lucky, a recruiter will show up somewhere you least expect and start with the campaign to get you to sign up!

As someone who never considered military service ever, even in the deepest recesses of his brain, I don’t want to seem as if I am against military service. But I would like to see an ethical process for American citizens becoming soldiers. Promising cash and prizes and college educations is not a moral way to convince people to sign up for the service. Combing through the realm of supposedly-private information to build a database for targetting potential recruits is not a moral way to find people to sign up for the service. Even the Christian Monitor objects to the latest Pentagon actions.

The Pentagon will always target the young, and this is something that will hardly change. Old soldiers don’t exactly inspire awe or confidence. But I will never agree to the military having access to every citizen whether they want to be contacted or not. And I certainly don’t agree with theprovisions in No Child Left Behind that constrain federal school funding to giving access to military recruiters. Most of the opt-out choices available aren’t broadly advertised to students in high school and college. It’s the military’s little secret that they don’t want people to know about: you can ask to be left out and left alone!. So if you have children and you don’t want them exposed to the tactics of recruitment that caused a suspension of all recruiting on May 20th, talk to your kids about the opt-out. If you are a student and feel the same way, do the same thing.

The choice is yours, to sign up for service or to be left alone without harassment that questions your integrity and patriotism. It’s not less noble to not want to fight, no matter what anyone says. Despite all the trappings, ribbons, medals, bows, shiny boots and impressive ranks, being a soldier has one basic truth to it: you may get ordered to kill someone, and the government will pay you for it. That is why I could not serve. Call me crazy, but there’s nothing in America so great that I would kill a man for it. Especially if we were both thousands of miles away from America, the man was no threat to me or my country, and my entire reason for being in his country was a fabricated lie by an amoral President.