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With respect to your historical allusion, I don't know how you think it is similar to Iraq. It is true that there was a small army but it was not anything like Sadaam's army. It was a sucessful institution that was able to expand and rise to the occasion. My father was drafted. He was a college educated entrepreneur not an illiterate scardy cat traumatized by 40 years of tyranny. Most important, of course, the Mexicans did not send suicide bombers against Fort Sam Huston during his training. As we have a reliable PO and banking system the army was able to pay my father and he supported his family without having to hand carry his pay from Europe home every month. Those are some differenes I see.

.....how you think it is similar to Iraq....

Its simply the mechanics of manpower and forcebuilding driven by leadership. Some eastern nations have gotten it when guided by western forces (think ghurkas, turks, and south koreans).

...illiterate scardy cat traumatized by 40 years of tyranny...

A reasonable point, however consider that fully one third of soldiers entering the army at the beginning of world war II were undernourished, traumatized by the Great Depression.

.....My father was drafted.....

Having seen the drafted US Army of the late 70s vs. the volunteer army of the eighties, I consider it an astonishing miracle that an effective force was fielded with US draftees. Of course those were the days of the first sargeant being the baddest ass in the company enforcing discipline sometimes with significant physical punishment there was even execution for crimes or desertion. Consider the European theater

.....tried by court-martial, and sentenced to the stockade or, in the case of rape or murder, to death by firing squad. Sixty-five men were ordered shot. Eisenhower had to pass the final judgment. In sixteen cases he changed the sentence to life in the stockade; forty-nine men were shot. ....

http://www.worldwar2history.info/Army/deserters.html

As opposed to draftees (which sometimes include the very dregs of society), consider the words of a free Iraqi voluntarily serving his country..

Five years ago, Hadi said he was forced to serve as a soldier under Saddam Hussein’s regime – a stark contrast from the all-volunteer Iraqi Army of today, he said.

“If Sadaam said ‘you will fight,’ then you had to fight or he would cut off your fingers,” said Hadi.

Hadi said he was glad when Sadaam’s rule collapsed. He made very little money in the Army while having to provide for his children. He juggled his stint in the Army with another job to make ends meet.

“I am proud to be a soldier now,” said Hadi, who volunteered to enlist in the new Iraqi Army to transform the war-torn streets of local neighborhoods to a place where even his children could be safe.

so to use your own words ........ """"not anything like Sadaam's army""""

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/2BE8072551440C468525714F005E2238?opendocument

...the Mexicans did not send suicide bombers against Fort Sam Huston during his training...

So you think your father would have shown less interest in defending the country if you and your family were in danger from foreign forces?

Those are some differenes I see.