Bush's legacy- Draft and debt

To the editor:

President Bush was asked Monday night during a CBS interview what he thought his legacy might be. After some thought, he said that it might read, "George W. Bush spread freedom at home and abroad." I didn't know I wasn't free when he took office. As for spreading it abroad ... .

Personally, I feel a more accurate legacy will read, "George W. Bush, the president whose actions brought back the draft and drove the nation into debt with no payback opportunity." I believe this for two reasons:

1. If we had borrowed $100 billion (remember the deficit?) to build a hydrogen-fuel filling station infrastructure (approximately 1,000 filling stations), the payback would have been worth the initial debt. Chasing other countries' oil interests makes us look arrogant and callous.

2. The "fortunate" sons and daughters have no safe place to serve in the military now that 40 percent of our forces in Iraq are from the National Guard. Add to that the back-door draft, which is keeping them rolling the roulette wheel. Those odds remind me of what the drafted men faced in Vietnam.

PAUL HERZBERGER, Cape Girardeau