To the editor:

The article in Thursday’s paper recounting the anti-war protest on the Kansas University campus 40 years ago brought out the point that things have changed with respect to how active the student body is these days as opposed to back in October 1969. The article recounted how an estimated 2,000-5,000 (quite a spread I might add) people participated.

What wasn’t mentioned were reasons why the student population today isn’t as vocally anti-war (Iraq or Afghanistan, the latter perceived until recently as second to the bigger show in Iraq) as the students of 40 years ago. One reason, I believe, is that the men of 1969 in college were draft age and faced the real possibility (if they left school) of getting drafted and ending up in Vietnam. Today’s college men don’t face that. They live in the age of the all volunteer force and thus have a choice the students of 40 years ago didn’t have.