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An 18-Year-Old Lad
Speak* Up
Since just about everybody else in the land has had, or expects to have his or her say regarding the proposal to draft 18-year-olds, H seems not amiss to inquire how those chiefly affected by the plan feel about it. A high school senior in Richmond, who will be 18 in a few months, does not claim to. apeak for all boys his age, but what he has to say on the subject in a letter to the Richmond News Leader is extremely interesting and possibly reflects the viewpoint of many youths now in school who expect to be in the Army ere long.
“I am a senior at a local high school", he begins, “and am going steady with a girl who graduates this term. There is nothing I would like better upon graduation than to have the chance to attend college, and then to marry and to work in the profession of my choice. But—I may get drafted.
“A lot of people are going around saying they feel sorry for the 4.8-year-olds and don’t think they should be drafted. Many mothers keep writing letters denouncing the proposed law. »I say they should keep quiet. For every 18-year-old who is drafted means one less veteran, married man or father will be called into active duty. It is easier for me, and boys like me, to leave their girl friends than for a married man to leave his wife and family. I think most boys would rather fight this war - than to make the veteran# fight another one."
There speaks the spirit of American youth at its best. Very simply and in words all the more forceful ‘for their quiet simplicity, this lad refers to his fondness for a certain girl and his desire to go to college and study for a profession, in order that he may go to work, marry and establish a family. But be subordinates his personal inclinations uncomplainingly to his country’s need and is fair enough to recognize and admit that it will involve less dislocation in the domestic scheme if he and boys like him are called into service instead of married men. He accepts what seems to be the destiny of his generation with- - out whining and thinks that “most boys would rather fight this war than to make the -veterans fight another one.”
Could anything be finer, more generous, more unselfish than the way this boy has spoken out on a question vitally affecting his whole future, perhaps his life itself? We do ’t know who his folks are, but manifestly they have raised a mighty fine boy — (Reprinted ■frnm tVi/a Pnannlro
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