But that’s not what I came to tell you about,” Arlo Guthrie famously sang in “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” in 1967. “I came to talk about the draft.” Then, the draft loomed large, and antiwar activists had all they could do to counsel resisters.

These days it’s the other way around. Activists go to youth or community groups or campuses to talk about military recruiting and GI resistance but find themselves faced with questions—from parents more than from students—such as, “Why do we have to register with the Selective Service System?” “Is there going to be a draft?”