No?

And you're not likely too anytime soon, either.

Notwithstanding how stressed the Army has become or how much it cranked up bonuses and lowered standards to make its accessions goals, talk of Congress ever reinstating military conscription for any reason other than an actual invasion of the United States is just that: talk.

It was one year ago this month that Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), charged up with the Democrats' victory in the congressional elections and headed for chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, vowed to push for a draft.

And he did, though the legislation he filed in January was quickly referred to a subcommittee and remains there today.

And in August, after Bush administration "War Czar" Army Gen. Douglas Lute said during an interview on National Public Radio that, given the stresses on the Army, conscription at least has to be considered, the Pentagon and White House immediately responded that a draft was not an option, and Lute quickly retreated from the explosive issue.

"Short of an invasion of the United States by a credible enemy, which probably means China or Russia, I can't imagine the American people tolerating a return to conscription," said David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland and director of the Center for Research on Military Organization. "And I can't imagine anyone in Congress risking their careers by supporting it."

Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration and currently a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., agrees a return to the draft is unlikely to happen.

"But from a moral point of view you should do it," he said in an interview. "Because not only are you ruining the Army long term [under the current system] but you're placing an unfair burden on the people."

The unfairness stems from deploying the troops for 15 months and then sending them back early - a consequence of not having an Army large enough to sustain operations while giving returned troops the time back home they're supposed to have - which is two months back for every one forward.

"The all volunteer Army was not built for a long war," Korb said. "When you went to a volunteer army you had a comparatively small active Army because manpower is expensive. You would have a Guard and Reserve as a bridge to conscription and you would also let the contractors basically do [services] what the Army used to call KP - kitchen police." 

Today, however, the Army is in a long war, it's not conscripting recruits and it's putting increased demands on active-duty and reserve members. "What you've done is you've put more contractors in [including in an armed capacity] and lowered your [recruiting] standards just to kind of hold the Army together,” said Korb.

But while a draft would give the Army the means to bring in new people as needed, the Army itself is among the harshest critics of conscription. The Army today is the most professional Army the United States has ever built or fielded, Pentagon leaders repeatedly have said, and in large part because it's entirely made up of volunteers.

And Segal points out that the Army can afford to lower its standards to some extent because it has over the years routinely been drawing from the highest quality candidates.

The Army does acknowledge there are stresses on the force and that recruiting has become more of a challenge.

"It's been a very difficult recruiting for the past several years and it's going to continue to be difficult," said S. Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army's Recruiting Command, Fort Knox, Ky. "This is the first time we've been recruiting for an all-volunteer force when we're at war. That's something different than in the past.”

"But we achieved our mission in FY 2007 and we're hard at work on 2008," he added.

Rangel, himself a Korean War combat veteran, has periodically pushed to reinstate the draft for years, and he has said that a draft without deferments probably would have assured there would have been no invasion of Iraq.

"I don't believe that Charlie Rangel believes there will be another draft," said Segal. “I think Charlie just wants a national discussion on who fights our wars."

Rangle’s office did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Numbers aside, however, the lack of a draft permits most Americans to sit out the war if they like, and with polls showing that most Americans oppose our involvement in Iraq, that appears what many are doing.

Last October, during a Pentagon press briefing on recruiting and the importance of parents and other "influencers" to support young people considering military service, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Ronald Coleman, deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs, recalled with some pain learning that his own brother and sister-in-law had sought to dissuade their son, his nephew, from joining the Corps.

It was something the young man had looked forward to doing since he was in the 7th grade, and finally did do, Coleman said.

"But I asked him what took him so long, and he said, "My parents felt that they're all for a strong national defense, but someone else's kid should do it," Coleman recalled.

To Frank Schaeffer, co-author of "AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service - and How It Hurts Our Country," the draft would be less of an issue if those most responsible for the war in Iraq or championing it would lead by example and encourage their own military-aged family members to put on a uniform.

But with few exceptions, he said, among them presidential candidates Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), some of the most hawkish voices on the war don't have a kid in it.

"If Mitt Romney or President Bush wanted moral credibility [on war in Iraq] they're kids would be in uniform," Schaeffer said. "That's not to say they'd force them into it ... but if they're talking that way at home [about the importance of serving] there would be a Bush and a Romney in uniform."

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor now running for the Republican nomination for president, caught flak recently when, asked by an Iowa woman if any of his five sons are in the military, he said they were "showing their support for the nation" by campaigning for him to be president.

And it’s not only Republicans, he said. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has been hawkish on Iraq, but her own daughter, Chelsea, is not in uniform.

Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., and expert in recruiting, believes the absence of people from such high-profile, politically significant families has contributed to recruiting woes. And recruiters believe it too, he said.

In an interview last year, Moskos said he met with a group of Army recruiters and asked them what would make their jobs easier. "I asked them, 'Would you like to triple your [recruiting] budget or have Jenna Bush in the Army?' They said they'd like to have Jenna Bush enlist."

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