Posted on 12/29/2014 8:19:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A veteran of the Cold War–era draft argues that once again sharing the burden of defending the country would produce better foreign policy—and better Americans.
The author doing his draft-time duty at a recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1960.
As the struggle with the Islamic State, or ISIS, grows more intense and the Obama administration’s air-attack strategy—if the experts turn out to be correct—proves unavailing, the calls for boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq are likely to become more insistent. Despite the coalition of nations aligned against ISIS and other terrorist groups, no one doubts that any such boots will be preponderantly American. Our current volunteer military will fill those boots.
Which prompts a question: Should the burden of defending America be exclusively theirs? When one watches those heartbreaking segments on the national news of men and women returning from Middle Eastern wars with missing limbs, and reads accounts of their suffering from mental-health problems as a result of their experiences in battle, one feels an essential unfairness about current military arrangements. True, these men and women volunteered for battle, yet in a democracy it somehow feels wrong for a small segment of the population to be charged with the responsibility of defending the country in foreign wars.
The remedy for this fundamental unfairness is of course at hand, and it goes by the name of the draft.
The draft was legally halted in 1973, toward the close of the Vietnam War. The effect was to relieve citizens of having to fight their country’s battles. A reinstated draft, or compulsory military service, would redistribute the burden of the responsibility for fighting wars, and engage the nation in military conflicts in a more immediate and democratic way....
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Forget that. It is hard enough getting good quality candidates for volunteer slots. The last thing the military needs is a bunch of people that are forced to be there.
Nonsense, they would only be drafting the good ones, right now we are heading toward a 50% female military.
Draftees won WWII, and WWI, it isn’t like the military doesn’t change a male teen during basic training and AIT.
It doesn’t matter what puts the young men into the military’s hands, if we can’t make warriors of them, then something is wrong with us.
Would the old training sergeants of WWII and Vietnam prefer well selected male draftees to female volunteers, of course, we all will the next time we are involved in a major war where we are truly fighting for our nation’s survival and it becomes a killfest of cut off units, overrun divisions and broken supply lines.
“I will take your expert opinion as more informed than my own and admit that a draft is best as a measure of last resort, like war.”
Countries which have an involuntary service requirement (normally two years in the subject’s choice of military, health care, etc.) have much more patriotic and involved citizens. Low welfare rolls as well. Austria requires every male to own a firearm. Belligerent countries don’t mess with most of these countries.
The only congress person I know who calls for a draft is the illegal DR landowner Charlie Rangel, the Maxine Waters of NYC. The military draft is normally invoked by Democrat Presidents after their party has started a war which is how most of this country’s wars have started (e.g., WWI, WWII, Vietnam).
Your analysis of the congressional draft proponents is why I don’t trust it now — they view military as way of: spreading social welfare dependency (first) and tearing down society (if available through war).
WWII as Democrat President war I would take issue with, given Germany declaring war on us first and Japan doing so via an actual attack.
Of course, there is the argument that FDR staged the whole thing...
but that is another thread for another day... ?
And if you don't take everyone, you have to run a lottery as we did during Vietnam (I could tell stories about my draft physical) or some other method of selection that would be ruthlessly gamed by the lazy as it was before. You also lose the societal advantages of everybody serving. I get that argument, absolutely, but the military can't support it.
That could be done in the U.S. but it'd be an enormous Reserve - not just the 4.4 million I cited above but that many each year. If you maintain that Reserve for any time at all you're talking tens of millions of people. Try to imagine what that would cost.
Mind you, I'm not dismissing the concept of some sort of national service (even though I find it objectionable on other grounds) but the military just isn't suited for it. My opinion only.
We are a Republic, not a Democracy. A just war will have plenty willing to VOLUNTARILY defend our safety and security. I volunteered. So can the next generation, if needed.
No draft, but I’d like to see some “Starship Troopers” style benefits for those who served.
“I’ve always loved the draft.”
And the draft broad.
Roger that. I did twenty in an all volunteer Army, and wouldn’t want anyone beside me who resents being forced to serve.
But in a country with 300 million people, that would mean training a far bigger army than could ever be used. That's what led to a plethora of draft exemptions, hence the "unfairness."
Universal Military service, combined with Universal National Service to the country might be a way to go. The other problem is that today's 18 year-olds are generally a lot dumber than a sixth-grader in 1950 when it comes to hard or handy factual knowledge. Of course, they're handy with cell phones, video games, and condoms.
This Left Wing Loonie author of the posted article (I believe I might safely assume his politics since he gets paid by The Atlantic) also thinks that soldiers could be made from the Ferguson Ferals. Ha!
The people who cause the wars should be the first to bury their children, not us.
The way it usually works, is that IF any of their sons get sent to war, they are kept far from the action and protected by squadrons of our sons at high cost. These sons, daughters, nieces and nephews, however, are huge beneficiaries of government largesse.
The US never drafted everybody. The standards just could be raised higher.
That would not work: the Bush family rarely sends any of their young men and the Romney family never does.
Odd, I served 22 years on active duty and the veterans of real wars I talked to were often appalled at the conditions I told them about. Day care centers on post, illegitimate births subsidized by the government, BSEP programs for borderline illiterates. No, rather than have somebody who joined for the college program I’d rather have the NCAA athlete who is serving a quick two years for his country, as was the case from the forties through early sixties.
When did we ever draft everybody? Conscription during the fifties was only applied as needed and as regards reserve service, that was/is criteria for pulling somebody out of the draft pool.
One can strongly argue that in times of national emergency at least a draft is necessary...if not actually good.I don’t see us as being in such a dire situation today however.
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