That's a somewhat foreboding thought, particularly as I had been drifting along with memories of World War II days when females didn't get drafted for military service. These days they don't either, but they can volunteer for combat duty, and women have been killed and wounded since the war in Iraq began. This means there's no assurance, nor do I suppose there ought to be, for avoiding military duty simply because one is female.

That's what women's liberation and equal opportunity has brought us. I'm not knocking it, you understand, I'm just pointing it out. Fair is fair, though, burdened as I am with memories of being a GI in Belgium and Germany in 1944 and 1945, I have a hard time visualizing women as a part of L Company, 39th Infantry Regiment, Ninth Infantry Division.

I assume women and men may not share the same foxhole, although it does seem possible. And Iraq is the kind of war, particularly these days, when there is no front line and you get killed most anywhere and at any time.

Of course, the draft hasn't been reestablished yet—although several members of Congress with singular patriotism have suggested it should be to make the burden more fair. (They should care, they're neither going to volunteer nor get drafted.)

I had hoped history might treat things otherwise for my grandchildren, that one war in a lifetime would be enough. But perhaps I should have known better. One war in each generation seems to be about average for Americans.

My father served in World War I, I was in World War II. None of my children were a part of the wars in Vietnam or Korea and so far none of my grandchildren seem likely to be a part of yet another conflict. But it is, of course, possible.

This was less likely in the 19th century. One of my grandfathers was born just before the Civil War and was too young to be a part of it. My other grandfather was busily migrating westward to California from New England through part of the same war, and he probably was too young, anyway. I never heard either one of them express any regret about missing the War Between the States.

World Wars I and II were, I guess, different. My father enlisted, but never got overseas. I think he probably was happy he'd served, though I have no written record of how he felt about it. I spent a lot of time during World War II trying to get in the service, feeling frustrated when I finally was drafted and assigned to be a tailor and then was frightened almost to death during the year and a half I was an infantryman.

But World War II was a peculiar war as wars go. Ninety per cent of the population was infused with patriotic fever. Almost all males wanted to be a part of the war (and were), and almost all females worked and waited while their men went off to fight.

There were, of course, the WAVES, the WACS and other female branches of the service as the war wore on, but they were made up of volunteers, not draftees.

A lot has happened to the country since then, and patriotism ain't what it used to be. It ain't what it used to be in this war, that's for certain. We seem a nation divided and getting more divided as the war progresses.

Just what that means for my granddaughters I am uncertain, and just what it means for me is equally unclear.

But I know this much: I don't want to see any of them injured or killed. I don't really want to see any of them drafted. And I leave to them and to their own consciences the question of whether or not they should enlist.

Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.