Times can get hard and people can get desperate, but people still have their rights and their freedom of choice.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel has proposed that the United States consider reinstating the draft. There are so many reasons why this is not a good idea that I don’t even know where to begin.

The draft was proposed as a result of not having enough soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. The soldiers already there have to stay longer than what was originally intended.

I should start by saying that I did not support the president’s choice to invade Iraq in the first place. There are problems in many other countries besides Iraq and the United States does not send troops to every one of these locations on the globe. Also, there still has not been strong evidence proving Iraq was involved in terrorism.

This leads me to believe that sending even more people to Iraq would not be a good idea. The draft would mean that even more civilians, even those who do not support the war, will have to fight in it.

Plus, the draft will cut into our rights and free will. It forces a person into something he or she does not want to do.

The draft, if put into effect, will include women. Apparently, creators of the draft don’t want to be sexist; they want to impair everybody’s free will equally.

Supporters of the draft obviously do not want to go to war themselves or else they would have volunteered by now, so drafting definitely takes away their free will. Even worse is that more soldiers means there are more deaths to come.

This is only a thought, but maybe if joining the military came with even more benefits then it does now, it would get more volunteers, or at least they would be one step closer to justifying what these soldiers are doing for the country right now.

These people are risking their lives. They deserve great perks, pay and benefits.

The military should be appreciated and we need it to be strong; but it would be stronger if all military personnel were volunteers, rather than people who were forced to enter.

Another suggestion would be to get the United Nations involved in the reconstruction of Iraq.

It would mean sharing the precious oil that this entire war was started for, and unfortunately it would be sending more soldiers to Iraq, but at least they would have volunteered themselves.

Although many countries of the United Nations didn’t want to get involved in the war, some of its members might find rebuilding Iraq to be a slightly more positive action.

It is violent and still a questionable move for us to make in the first place, but it would be good for the United Nations to get involved. The United States needs to take all the help it can get right now.

The draft has only been considered and is supposedly far from being put into effect, but the idea of this is still very serious and wrong. It is not an action we want to take.

It is true that all these opinions and suggestions on war are the speculations of a young student, but if the draft is reinstated, young students will be the ones forced into service. When it comes to drafting, there has got to be a better way.