I'm not sure what I would do if Congress called for a draft. I would want to resist out of anger, but my resistance would only shift the burden to somebody less well-off.

One thing is certain, however: I don't have to like this war. I have learned my lesson about passive acceptance, and this time, at least, I am not going to stand by in silence.

THE MEDIA ESTABLISHMENT really doesn't seem to care about the human costs of Operation Desert Storm. An NBC news commentator casually mentions that Iraqi civilian casualties number only 300 or 400 after a few days of bombing, and Tom Brokaw grunts in agreement that such losses are acceptable.

Gen. Colin Powell and the Pentagon establishment conspire to make sure the public never finds out just how awful this war really is. Military officials toe the White House line, and reporters parrot their propaganda to the people.

What frightens me is how many Americans seem to accept this government rhetoric without any meaningful questions whatsoever. Polls show the majority of Americans support the war effort and have no problem with the current press restrictions. Ignorance is bliss, as long as your neighbors are doing the dying.

Sure, some Americans are concerned. Polls show, for instance, that Blacks are markedly more lukewarm about the Gulf War than whites. Not surprisingly, Blacks make up 30 percent of the American forces in the Gulf and will do an equally disproportionate share of the dying.

But it's the same old story. The people raising objections--the people who will suffer--don't have the power to articulate their opposition fairly. And while the well-to-do say they're sympathetic, they're not going to do anything to change the status quo.

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE that our generation is the first to grow up, until now, without having witnessed the horrors of war. It is also no coincidence that this generation came of political age during the Reagan and Bush years, an era in which concern for the self has come before all else.

If there was a silver lining to the whole Vietnam experience, it was that the children of the 1960s learned the exact opposite lesson: that they could not passively accept any kind of injustice, even if that injustice didn't directly affect then.

They learned this lesson precisely because one injustice--the Vietnam war--affected them. The sense that they, too, could be vulnerable made a powerful impact on these young adults. It made them aware of all the other injustices around them and motivated them to do something about it.

In the 1960s, concern over Vietnam united students around a potpourri of causes, from civil rights to the environment. The alliance itself didn't last, but the underlying sense of duty--the sense that neutrality equals complicity-- endured for at least a while.

It was an extraordinarily painful lesson that cost Vietnam its virtual existence and the United States its very soul. It was a painful lesson this generation, unfortunately, seems determined to learn for itself.

I REMEMBER when I learned that lesson. It was on that cold Tuesday night in Harvard Square.

I remember arriving at the vigil only seconds after the clock above Cambridge Trust turned to 12:00. I waited around for a few minutes. I even joined the protesters in a few bars of "Give Peace a Chance."

It was something, I suppose. But it was too little, far too late. The time to stop this war had long since passed.