(WashPost) In their Ellicott City kitchen, Jeff Amoros's parents handed their son the Selective Service registration form that arrived shortly after his 18th birthday. For them, it evoked dark memories of the Vietnam era. For Amoros, it meant: "I'm old enough to die for my country now."

At a Montgomery County Friends meeting house, peace activist J.E. McNeil explained to an audience how to convince draft boards that they are conscientious objectors. "Let me tell you why I think there's going to be a draft," she said.

Rarely in the more than 30 years since the draft was abolished has the Selective Service triggered such angst. Two years into the Iraq war, concern that the draft will be reinstated to supplement an overextended military persists -- no matter how often, or emphatically, President Bush and members of Congress say it won't.