Great post!
:O)
P
Posted on 04/15/2007 3:02:41 AM PDT by Liz
.... Rudy Giuliani carries a lot of baggage - but it's his draft-dodging past that may prove the biggest drag, prominent veterans tell New York magazine in tomorrow's issue. Speaking about terrorism and the Iraq war last week, Giuliani boasted, "It is something I understand better than anyone else running for president." But it was draft deferments that kept Giuliani, 62, out of Vietnam while he attended law school. He was granted a 2-A occupational deferment for his job as a law clerk in 1969 after his boss, the late Manhattan federal Judge Lloyd MacMahon, wrote a letter to the local draft board - a move criticized years later as rare and questionable. Law clerks were not on the 1968 list of critical jobs that qualified for occupational deferments. Giuliani "has made it clear that if he had been called up, he would have served," Giuliani spokeswoman Katie Levinson told New York magazine. He was opposed to the war in Vietnam on "strategic and tactical" grounds," she added, although she wouldn't offer specifics.
"If Giuliani is the nominee, we're going to hammer him with ads, and it's going to be easy because the issue is simple: He's a draft dodger," Jon Soltz, an Iraq vet who served as a captain and runs VoteVets.org, a left-leaning version of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth .......a sense that a candidate can handle the role of commander-in-chief remains important to most Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yay! Another election about Vietnam. Because it is so relevant to today!
At least Giuliani did a public service by prosecuting bad guys. What has Newt ever done to benefit society?
Your gif looks like an inverted “t”. I much prefered the double “L”. :)
:O)
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We can no longer NOT afford it!
My position and the basis of our (democratic) system has always been that every citizen enjoys the protection of a free Government and should owe his personal service to America's defense.
I was a draftee who served my country faithfully for a two year period and the U. S. Army Reserves for a two-year active period, then was placed for four more years in an inactive status.
While on active duty I observed faithful service by 'Regulars' and draftees.
Exemptions from military service should be extremely rare. I believe that compulsory service builds character and prepares the individual for a more fruitful life having served his nation and taught him the importance of discipline.
A draft would upgrade the quality of U.S. troops as it would give access to a cross-section of America's youth. The number of military enlistees who achieve advanced scores on qualifying tests has dropped by a third since the 1990s. In fiscal year 2000, the Army actually took in some 380 recruits with felony arrests.
This has to stop and the way to stop it is to induct.
You said it much better than I did later on in the thread!
Unfortunately I believe you to be correct.
The big thing that worries me is what our enemies will be doing to us as we continue this rather rapid descent.
Your story .. ROTFLOL!!!
We already spend more on defense than almost the rest of the world combined. More and more of the federal budget is being consumed by entitlement programs, which are approaching 50% of the budget. If nothing is done, by 2060, the combination of Social Security and Medicare will account for more than 71 percent of the federal budget. And 17 cents of every federal dollar is spent on servicing the national debt. What size military do you propose.
Exemptions from military service should be extremely rare. I believe that compulsory service builds character and prepares the individual for a more fruitful life having served his nation and taught him the importance of discipline.
Compulsory service sounds great until you look at the numbers involved and the costs. There are over 32 million people [men and womeen] in the 18-26 cohort. How can the US military absorb such huge numbers and the costs needed to train and support them? Is the military supposed to be a social engineering lab or does it serve a specific purpose? What is wrong with a voluntary military? I have seen both, and the volunteer military is far more professional and competent. Moreover, it is much more high tech requiring a major investment in training. Rotating people on a conveyer belt system through the military every two years is not very cost effective nor does it build a professional military. We are not fighting mass land wars across the globe.
A draft would upgrade the quality of U.S. troops as it would give access to a cross-section of America's youth. The number of military enlistees who achieve advanced scores on qualifying tests has dropped by a third since the 1990s. In fiscal year 2000, the Army actually took in some 380 recruits with felony arrests. This has to stop and the way to stop it is to induct.
A draft would hurt the military. No organization wants people who don't want to be there. The JCS and every service chief is dead set against a draft and for good reason. We have never had a better trained and more professional military, which is the world's best by far. If it ain't broke don't fix it, especially when the "fix" will actually hurt the quality of the force. We don't need feel good measures, which contribute nothing to military readiness and increase costs. What you suggest is not practical. And a draft would be inherently unfair because most would never serve.
Falsehoods in just that sentence:
1)"It" is the National Guard in general, but units varied in particular. Not taking the particular is deceitful.
2) In particular, at the time GWBush volunteered, the unit had pilots rotating to Vietnam. The position he applied with required not just a couple of months of training over a summer, but roughly two years of service. Once the point in trainging occured where actual flights began, it became a fairly dangerous occupation, as per year roughly 2% of all pilots of his plane died each year in crashes unrelated to combat...plus those in combat.
At the time of his volunteering there was no waiting list at all for pilots in his unit. There was a shortage, and his unit was not able to fill all slots.
Even in peacetime conditions, F-102 pilots risked their lives on every flight. Only highly-qualified pilot candidates were accepted for Delta Dagger training because it was such a challenging aircraft to fly and left little room for mistakes. According to the Air Force Safety Center, the lifetime Class A accident rate for the F-102 was 13.69 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours, much higher than the average for today’s combat aircraft. For example, the F-16 has an accident rate of 4.14, the F-15 is at 2.47, the F-117 at 4.07, the S-3 at 2.6, and the F-18 at 4.9. Even the Marine Corps’ AV-8B, regarded as the most dangerous aircraft in US service today, has a lifetime accident rate of only 11.44 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. The F-102 claimed the lives of many pilots, including a number stationed at Ellington during Bush’s tenure. Of the 875 F-102A production models that entered service, 259 were lost in accidents that killed 70 Air Force and ANG pilots.
And when you consider the particulars, it is clear that he was utterly wrong. You're applying statements out of context. His were in relation to the initial invasion.
You seem to have missed the time since Mogodishu. The perception that you cite is the reason why we were attacked in the first place (BEFORE the full re-engagement with Iraq). To the extent this effort has been lost, it has been lost here at home as a political movement has been opportunistic in choosing their own power over success in the war. Really though, the accomplishments have still been tremendous. Just what happened with Libya was easily worth it all. BEFORE Iraq round 2, the world had learned not to respect our word and our threats.
We'll never agree. I base my belief on personal experience and the fact that the military has no business accepting inductees with an AFQT score of under 100. They are inducting many with scores as low as 75 because they're desperate.
Let the low scorers pick tomatoes and send the Mexicans home.
'Entltlements should be slashed with a meat axe as should the rest of the central goobermint.
Defense and character building is job # 1 of our military.
Please don't wave the entitlements issue at me because I don't believe in them.
Forget the women (any nation that places females in combat jobs isn't worth defending) you include in the 18-26 category, then subtract the underachievers and you have a figure that is easily managed.
Universal military service, for those qualified, would be the best thing that could happen to our military.
Our politicians would like to see the status quo in respect to the military because if they didn't have the underachievers the Mexican illegals (Guest Voter Program) would definiately have to go in order to make room for those not qualified to serve in our military.
I don't know if you served in the military and don't care. There was a classification used in the Army until those in that classifcation could be released from active duty due to their poor IQ. That classifcation was Duty Soldier.
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