*Draft! Are you a lazy American?*?

My young friend, you have brought up an excellent point -- if you take the whole "freedom is not free" aspect out of your argument, you still make a good case for able-bodied American citizens being required to serve in the Armed Forces. As you alluded to, a person learns a wide array of valuable life skills by serving in the military -- like learning CPR, purifying stream water, being able to start a fire, alternate forms of communication like Morse Code, being able to develop an emergency plan, the list goes on and on. The problem is the mainstream liberal media would have the American populace believe that being in the military turns you into a mindless automaton that can only do two things: kill people and take orders. Nothing could be further from the truth. American military men and women are trained to be self-sufficient individuals who can not only care for themselves but can care for their friends, families, and colleagues who wear the uniform. Now, once you add the aspect of protecting our country and our freedom back into the equation, the benefit of requiring people to serve in the military increases tenfold. In the case of your average American citizen, I don't think it's so much a case of not being able to handle the truth -- I think it's more a case of being a spoiled American who has come to expect everything to be handed to him/her just because he/she is an American. This is a terrible thing to say, but I think this country NEEDS another Great Depression and/or another World War to teach some humility to the whiny-@$$ed mes.