How I Learned to Love the Draft

The Atlantic ^ | December 28, 2014 | Joseph Epstein

[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....

[onedoug]

Like the babies who howled over Vietnam?

That was a war worth fighting.

Your theory won’t work.

[Night Hides Not]

I was on active duty from 76-84. The quality of the force improved greatly during that time, but it took a lot of time and energy to drum out the bad apples. The politicians need to stop effin’ with our military.

[Regulator]

You’re saying that Vietnam could have been fought with volunteers?

If it was a war worth fighting - and I always thought it was - how many volunteers would there have been after ‘68?

Had dinner last night with a draftee who spent ‘69 in the Central Highlands. I KNOW he never would have volunteered, but he did his obligation and is still proud of it.

So you say my “theory” won’t work..but it was the “theory” from WWI all the way to March of ‘73. What changed?

And I will tell you what changed: the level of Communist propaganda in the U.S. and willful disinformation about what would happen in the aftermath of the “agrarian revolutions” of Southeast Asia. It’s nauseating that the world had to witness the Khmer Rouge massacres and the North Vietnamese “re-education” camps but there is no one now who can credibly say these things won’t happen in the aftermath of a Communist takeover.

And if the U.S. is filled with people who think that such things are acceptable in lieu of a commitment by us, then there isn’t much to defend, is there?

[Jean2]

Thank you.

[onedoug]

I think it was more “everyone will oppose it as unjust”.

I believe in the draft. I was RA twixt Tam Ky and Danang, and all points west. I believed we could have kicked their asses in three days had our political leadership decided that’s what they wanted. But they didn’t.

But I will always be proud of my service, and the men I served with there, US, RA, NG, whatever.

[Rembrandt]

“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... ?

---

In 1967, I was coasting thru college, getting C’s. At that time the military was an inevitability. A friend and I agreed to sign up for the voluntary draft which advances your name to the top of the list. Instead of accepting the draft and carrying a rifle for two years, I joined the Navy for 4 years. That was the best decision I ever made in my life. I came out a much better person. I returned to college which was a piece of cake after learning how to apply myself (courtesy of the military). I graduated. I got a job with one of the best companies in the U.S. Now I’m retired with a very comfortable IRA and I’m sneering at people who crap on the military experience.

Some people, perhaps you, consider that sort of experience as foolish. I travel all over the world. My house is mostly paid for. I am free to speak my mind about politics but nevertheless, I’ve never suited up with the LA Dodgers. And that’s ok with me.

[CharleysPride]

“Some people, perhaps you, consider that sort of experience as foolish”

Not me Rembrandt, any experience which improves you has value