Should the U.S. reinstate the draft? The U.S. has retied on a volunteer army since 1973. With Americans fighting, and dying, in Afghanistan and Iraq, is it time to bring back the draft?

• Author: Finelli, Mark
• Position: DEBATE

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YES On Sept. 11, 2001, I was working in the World Trade Center, and by sheer tuck I was not one of the 2,823 people who died there. As I ran down 61 flights of stairs, it was clear to me that we had sudden[y become a nation at war, and I expected the government to reinstate the draft immediately.

But that didn't happen, and the failure to reinstate the draft in the aftermath of 9/11 was a huge mistake.

That became clear to me when I joined the Marines in 2003. I served for six months in Iraq, and my experience made me realize we have a serious talent deficiency in the military.

A draft would remedy that immediately. America's bravest are currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but our brightest are not. If I could have built a squad with five M.I.T. or Caltech students, I bet within months they'd have found a way to make the roadside bombs that killed so many U.S. troops ineffective.

Furthermore, if the most well-connected people in government and business had to worry about their own children's safety, battle plans would be made more prudently, and the best gear would be available to the military in a more timely manner.

I favor a World War II-style draft, with the brothers and sons of future and former Presidents serving (and, unfortunately, dying, as a Roosevelt and a Kennedy once did). That is when a war effort is maximized. The military cannot be a faceless horde to those in charge of our most important institutions.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan need to be more discomforting to the average American than just bad news on TV. In the long term, democracies cannot successfully wage protracted wars when the only people who are sacrificing are those who choose to go.

--MARK FINELLI, CORPORAL, U.S. MARINE CORPS*

NO On the wall of my congressional office hangs a quote from Senator Robert A. Taft: "A compulsory draft is far more typical, of totalitarian nations than of democratic nations. The theory behind it reads directly to totalitarianism...