On September 11, 2001, I Wondered If Women Would Be Drafted

I hesitate to keep that title for fear that it makes me sound dumb, but it's the exact truth; on September 11, 2001, my first worry was that women would be drafted.

I'm 39, and on September 11, 2001, I had just started my sophomore year of junior college. I woke up around eight-thirty that morning and my parents told me to turn on the news.

In Los Angeles, it felt very "far away" but still horrifying. I still lived at home and my mother- who carries her stress loudly 365 days a year, was somehow relatively composed. (Maybe because by that time she'd been through so many historical events?) I guess I took my lead from her, and somehow she didn't encourage me to stay home.

Most of that week was a bit of a daze, but I remember watching the live news footage with my own eyes- and somehow thinking I needed to drive across town to attend the three college classes I had that day.

At 11 am, I had Ethics. My teacher was all business, told us there was no time to waste, and lectured for the entire 90 minutes. She commented disapprovingly on the excessive amount of absences. Obviously, we all belonged in class. Tsk. Tsk.

I'm pretty sure there were three classes, but I can't remember what was next. But I know that in the late afternoon, I had my favorite class- creative writing. It was my first college-level creative writing class- the first of many. My teacher was this super strange and excessively casual guy. He showed up with an expression I'd never seen before on him. Only a few students had shown up and he let us go immediately.

"It doesn't feel relevant to be here," he said. A handful of students slinked out and a few of us gathered at a table in the back of the room.

I'll never forget what he said though, because it had two meanings to me. One, he was right - I do not think 18-year-old kids need to show up to school while a terrorist attack is in progress. I think on that day you stay home - you sit with your roommates or family; You take care of yourself.

I'd also say that, having just spent two years in a pandemic, art is absolutely relevant in times of trouble, but that's more of a lesson for older students and those creating art for a living. We were basically children. We didn't need two hours of story structure training while we wondered if another airplane was about to be taken down by terrorists.

I was on the younger end of my grade level, so even though it was my sophomore year, I was still 18… My first year as a "legal adult.

At the back of the empty classroom, I sat with a few students. "There's going to be a draft," someone said, panicked. A boy, maybe? We all knew what a draft was…sort of. When you think of the draft, you think of Vietnam and young men being forced to go to war. As a girl, it's sort of unthinkable. I didn't know if boys in my generation even worried about that because it sort of felt like a thing from the past.

But was it?

"They might draft girls, too," someone said. A girl, who seemed knowledgable in that moment.

This scared me. Unfounded fear, but how would I know any differently? I did the musical Hair (twice actually) within the next several years, which gave me a little more background on Vietnam and the draft, but sitting in the back of a room knowing part of the NYC skyline was changed in a split second, it felt very real.

And is it completely unreal? Just last year, there was talk of a bill that would force women to register the same as men do.

Cell phones were in their infancy, and I probably didn't even ask the internet when I got home that afternoon, but I held my breath as time went on that women would not, in fact, be drafted. And that young men, in fact, would not either.

I know plenty of men who have served, but I didn't watch any of them make that choice as a minor, turning 18. It feels otherworldly to me- to go willingly into war. To support war at all as an active participant. Because when we support our country by joining up, we also support the act of war.

We have never figured this out - how to stop playing this game where so many end up dead, and here we are again in another historic moment, as people talk of the potential for the US joining in the impending war.

Where were you when you saw this news and heard people throw around the term World War III? Does it feel historic yet?

It feels outside the scope of our capacity- two years of a pandemic that shows no sign of ending. Americans still refusing to take basic precautions like wearing masks… and at the same time, people dutifully wearing a mask while sitting in a makeshift bomb shelter/subway station across the world, wondering what will be left outside after their fate is decided by grown ups playing with deadly toys and more power than anyone should have.