An Inconvenient Question

Tonight, my son asked me how to avoid the draft.

Leaving aside the facts that there is no draft, and the fact he is NINE, he wanted to know how to avoid going to war.

He had asked me about going to war before. In this day and age, there is almost no avoiding it. The war is everywhere. Especially for a bright, aware child who sees the news and watches Countdown with his mom. (He's got good taste!)

But he never asked how to avoid it in detail before. I asked him why, considering the above mentioned facts, he was concerned about it. He said he didn't want to go and be blown up by a car bomb.

I was floored. I was unsure how to answer. I wondered if it was a good idea for him to see the news, if he was going to worry about things like that. But there is no real way to protect him from what is real, and the truth is preferable to false comfort. So I told about how it works, and the options to avoid it. My nine year old son chose jail rather than the draft. Clearheaded. Just about broke my heart. Because I had a hard time telling him convincingly about honor and service to your country when needed. There are members of both sides of his family who answered the call when their country needed them. But my son knows that the government lies sometimes, and that they don't always have his best interests at heart. He is a cynic at nine, not a patriot. In one way, I am glad that his eyes are wide open, that no one will take advantage of his youth and inexperience to send him off to war. But I am more than a little sad that he never had "America, the Beautiful". The trust that he was safe, and that everything was going to be all right. He was 4 on 9/11, and it has colored even his world. He never even got a chance to be innocent of the dangers. Or the opportunity to be proud to be an American. Just lies, and danger, and war that even he knows was wrong. I hope I can teach him to love this place, and work to make it the best it can be. But I wonder if he, and kids like him, are going to give up hope. Or if they ever got to have any. good night and good luck...stimp