Ever since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, there have been whispers about reinstituting the draft. In some ways, that's a moot point.We've all been drafted already.We're in the Army now. We stand on guard for attack. We worry about white powder. We worry about the air that we breathe. We think the enemy may strike at anytime. We are alert. We are debriefed. We are given orders from our leaders.Isn't that how soldiers behave?
It was a crisp autumn Sunday, a day when churchgoers shook hands in parking lots, and men grabbed rakes to gather leaves before the football games started. A chill was in the air, and we pulled up our collars against the oncoming winter.By sunset, our perspective had changed. As the news came that bombs had been dropped in Afghanistan, and missiles had been launched and threats were flying back and forth across the oceans, we realized that chilly shiver was more than just the change of seasons.War had begun.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.