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To: Rightly Biased
Fair enough. It's a complicated issue but I believe the "draft without controversy" window was open for just a short time. Within a few days of 9-11 - probably when W was standing on the mound of ruble in NYC - the President should have said he was asking Congress for authority to draft. At the present time we may not need the draft but the authority would be there. Women should be included in the authority and they should be required to register at 18, along with the men, right now.

Under a draft, if someone does not want to serve in uniform, they should be allowed to perform an alternate service, but no one who is capable should be exempt.

The recruitment numbers don't lie. We are wearing out certain parts of our military and if we continue down this path, it will be harder and harder to rebuild, with or without a draft, if we get the chance.

I've said it before but General Shalikashvilla (Shali) and Elvis were drafted in 1958 and both did their duty.
30 posted on 05/07/2005 7:48:46 AM PDT by leadpenny
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To: leadpenny
"Women should be included in the authority and they should be required to register at 18, along with the men, right now."

To be used as what? Certainly not soldiers. We have never drafted people into the Navy or Air Force and would not need to because the draft would encourage enlistments into alternatives to the Army, just as it did in the 1950's.

As it stands now the average white female doesn't make it to the end of the enlistment. Why draft an element of the population that we know has 40% less upper body strength than their male counterparts into a job which potentially requires maximum upper body strength? Anecdotally, I've never seen a barracks that I'd want my sister or neice to be living in...and I would not want to impose that atmosphere on any woman. Aside from producing abortions and bastard children that burden the military budget, there is not much to be said for it. BTW, try getting the out of wedlock birth statistics from the Army. It is not something the institution wants to talk about.

Resuming the draft is a good tool to fairly and efficiently staff our army. Using it to create some national socialist "national worker" program is not necessary, and also creates an equivalence in service that is not beneficial to the military. We could end up with a situation as the Germans are facing now, where most men opt for civilian service to avoid the rigors of military life.

33 posted on 05/08/2005 1:43:15 AM PDT by Meldrim
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