Austria has no enemies. It is difficult to think of why Austria even needs an army. Nonetheless, a year ago, the Austrian electorate, by almost 60%, voted to continue to draft soldiers into the army rather than have a smaller professional force.
The vote to keep the conscript army was especially high in rural areas, where soldiers help to shovel out villages hit by avalanches or build sandbag dikes to protect villages from flooding.
In addition, if conscription were ended, thousands of conscientious objectors would no longer perform jobs like elderly care givers or ambulance drivers.
I was drafted in 1969 during the Vietnam War. I was rejected because I had high blood pressure. (I still have it, but it is kept in check by medication.) If I remember correctly, my status was 1-Y, which was reserved for illiterates, homosexuals, and people who had a medical condition that could be overlooked in an extreme emergency.
Now, of course, we have an all-volunteer army, composed of men and women from the bottom of the economic scale. Imagine the opposition the the Afghan war if rich kids were dying there.
I know that a draft is about the least popular position one can take today. Nonetheless, I think it would have a major impact on our foreign policy, it would be fair, and it should be done. I applaud the Austrian voters.
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