John Boehner, October 8, 2004 S

A while back, one of our neighbors in the Eighth District forwarded me an e-mail they received, which told them of a "secret plan" to bring back the military draft. I answered their e-mail, explaining there was no such plan. Over the next several weeks, more of these e-mails poured into my inbox, all of which contained the same message about this "secret plan." It turns out these e-mails are part of a larger campaign based on, sadly...a hoax. This elaborate rumor mill was further strengthened by a cable television network using the military draft as an issue in a voter education advertising campaign. And a broadcast network even included this rumor in an evening news report -- not exposing it as a hoax, but instead reporting it as fact.

In the interest of setting the records straight, here’s the whole story.

In January 2003 -- months BEFORE the war in Iraq even began -- Democrat Congressman Charles Rangel of New York introduced H.R. 163, the Universal National Service Act. This legislation called for all young U.S. citizens - including women -- to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service related to national defense or homeland security. In other words, it would reinstitute a form of the draft. Five of the most liberal Members of the House joined him as co-sponsors of the measure.

From the moment this legislation was introduced, no one in Congress took it seriously. They knew Mr. Rangel wrote the bill solely for political reasons, and even he acknowledged it had no chance at all to be passed by the House. He was right.

For nearly two years, this bill sat - as do most other politically-inspired pieces of legislation -- completely idle. Neither credible Democrats nor Republicans had any intention of demanding a vote on it. No one in Congress, at the White House, at the Pentagon, or on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan had called for the establishment of a draft to increase troop levels in the War on Terrorism. And so the matter seemed to have gone

away.However, as this year’s election drew closer, a whisper campaign started. The e-mail campaign followed. And the rumor of a "secret plan" gained steam. However, these rumors did not include the facts about the bill’s prospects. Instead, they implied that President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and the Republican leadership of Congress were behind the revival of the draft.

Sometimes, hardball politics like this could be silenced only by more hardball politics in return. And that’s just what has happened. To the surprise of many -- including Congressman Rangel, the bill’s author -- the House recently brought the legislation to a vote. The House leadership, who made the decision to bring it to a vote, knew it would fail -- and fail miserably.

They were correct. It was defeated soundly, by a vote of 2 to 402. Even more interesting than the measure’s margin of defeat was the fact that Congressman Rangel himself voted NO on it. That’s right: the man who wrote it didn’t even give it his vote!

The fact is the new challenges of the 21st Century require us to have the type of highly trained forces you can only find in a volunteer-based military. Currently, all the services are meeting or exceeding their recruitment and retention goals. President Bush opposes the draft. So does Senator Kerry. And now, in a simple, straightforward up or down vote, the House has put this rumor to rest. It’s sad that so much energy has been devoted to scaring the American people about this very sensitive issue. And, in another unfortunate reality of the Internet age, it’s also sad that an e-mail hoax can take on a life of its own.

Congressman John Boehner, a Republican, represents Ohio's Eighth Congressional District, which includes Miami, Butler, Preble, Darke, and Mercer Counties.