Posted on 08/10/2007 4:12:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday. "I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
"And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.
President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a "major policy shift" and Bush has made it clear that he doesn't think it's necessary.
The repeated deployments affect not only the troops but their families, who can influence whether a service member decides to stay in the military, Lute said.
"There's both a personal dimension of this, where this kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living room conversations within these families," he said. "And ultimately, the health of the all- volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions."
The military conducted a draft during the Civil War and both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. The Selective Service System, re- established in 1980, maintains a registry of 18-year-old men.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has called for reinstating the draft as a way to end the Iraq war.
Bush picked Lute in mid-May as a deputy national security adviser with responsibility for ensuring efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are coordinated with policymakers in Washington. Lute, an active-duty general, was chosen after several retired generals turned down the job.
If young people are on board for an idea, they'll volunteer. If they don't, its a bad idea....
Oh my, you've hit on something very important. I now rescind my call for a draft to alleviate the military manpower shortage.
We had them beat, dude, before dem rats jerked the funding and condemned the good people of Vietnam to communism and genocide.
Correct.
Rember, it was a U.N. war, we were mercinarys in a Communist U.N. war, as in Korea, and many other places around the world.
“You see the problems we had with just one Beauchamp,, now imagine hundreds of them.”
I agree. Filling the ranks with reluctant draftees could destroy troop morale, & give the MSM a treasure trove of Kerry-esque atrocity stories.
I would like to see a larger regular Army. The world doesn’t seem to be getting safer, but more dangerous. And, I’d like to see the troops get more & longer leave. More pay, too.
Our concern is for our daughters. More and more there has been a movement to legitimize women being, not only in the military (which is not new), but women being in combat rolls. It is actually against the law to put women in combat rolls or directly within the shooting arena itself, according to letters I have from Senator Evan Bayh (D., IN) and from the Selective Service Administration. BUT IT IS HAPPENING! OUR MILITARY PLANNERS ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW! I have been regularly registering my protest to any reestablishment of the draft, and our objection to our daughters being forced out of the home as any result of a draft. My letters have gone to all of our state and federal elected representatives, as well as to Selective Service and the DOD.
From letters I have received from my elected representatives, I see the draft as a clear possibility — not something to ignore. Further, we believe from our research that the drafting of women is on the table.
We have four daughters. We will not, under any circumstances, agree to their being drafted. We will also never agree to them being forced out of home life for “alternative public service” which might be mandated for conscientious objectors as a result a draft.
This is all a matter of our biblicist Christian faith, well-established, that our daughters be trained for home life (Titus chapter 2; Proverbs chapter 31; etc.), to be wives and mothers, to raise godly children. It is not new to us; it is something we have preached and written about for the full thirty years of our Christian life and ministry.
There are perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of families who hold strong biblicist Christian home principles similar to ours. This is true, the fact that many professing “Christian” women do enlist in the military notwithstanding.
The lack of attention to biblicism on the part of some professing “Christians” women who do enlist is no criteria for whether OUR faith is biblicist or valid. If those women who enlist are Christians at all, they have made a choice to ignore certain biblical principles clearly enunciated in dozens of passages. Their choice to disobey the Scriptures provides no reasoning to force my family, my daughters in particular, to ignore the Scriptures.
Many young women are enlisting and leaving their babies, their children, behind for training and deployments far away, including in the Middle East. We sincerely believe that this would be wrong and sinful for my wife or our daughters to do, and we have taught these things diligently in our home from the time we became Christians, early in our marriage, and from the time our children were in their cribs.
But the fact that more and more women do leave their children behind for military service, will be used as a reason to force other women, to whom the thought of such is repugnant, to do the same thing. It will be asked us, “Well other women leave their children and get deployed, and some of them claim to be Christians, too, so what makes you so special that your daughters shouldn’t have to serve?”
Our daughters are not special, but they have a particular faith; they have a biblicist life course. That faith and that life course are actually consistent with the mind set of common women of our nation up through the Second World War.
Our daughters are not freaks, and they are not rebels. They are patriots who are willing to raise patriot sons, who will be willing to don the uniform and shoulder the rifle in defense of our nation. Our daughters sincerely believe that to remain in their homes and raise good, godly, Christian patriot children is the greatest service they can render to the Nation. After all, the numbers of women doing this is decreasing by alarming rates. The result is a demise of family structure itself in our land.
TO BE GODLY CHRSITIAN EXAMPLES IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS — TO RAISE CHILDREN WHO HAVE GODLY CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES IS, IN OUR TIMES, A SUPERIOR PUBLIC SERVICE. It is greater than any form of “alternative public service” the government could devise for conscientious objectors.
We do believe, based upon credible information in letters from our own elected representatives and from federal agencies, that if a draft is re-instituted, they will draft females as well as males. Or(!) they will try to force certain females out of their homes for public service in public policy support of the draft.
Let’s hear from more draftees on this issue. Do you value the experience of serving your country in the military?
Maybe, but it sure won't fly in today's America.
Since Vietnam all we have heard is equal rights, equal pay, equal everything. Females are now cops, fire fighters etc...
If they want to draft the young men, they'll have to draft the young women too. Just no way around it.
Just exactly who is pushing putting women on the front lines?
I know Chelsea and the Bush daughters will not end up on the front lines.
Women are smaller than men and they are not as good at fighting as men. Putting women on the front lines only makes sense to deluded feminists and people who get their jollies from watching poor women come home in body bags.
They did.
As I said, since Vietnam, they've demanded equal jobs, equal pay, equal rights, equal everything. If they can be cops and firefighters, race car drivers, and demand equality, then it's only fair if there is a draft, to draft both, female, and males.
The only thing a draft will give us is a poor quality military. Unwilling soldiers make bad soldiers. They have one incentive, keep their heads down until their hitches are up. They don’t care about winning, they don’t care about supporting their fellow troops, and they don’t care about saving the country.
Oh, and the same exact thing can be said for cops jobs, but they have no problem taking those jobs do they?
Three of your nephews are men, then. ...will briefly Freepmail a comment to you on the rest.
Wrong group to ask ... better to ask currently serving senior NCOs and mid-grade Officers. I'd trust them to know what our current military needs.
I admire the police but your analogy is not fair and you know it.
Over all our soldiers , especially those who will fight on the front lines, must be tougher than our police force.
They already are, on another forum I’m on.
Your absolutely incorrect.
The chances of females having to physically engage with people/criminals in law enforcement is much greater than would be in the military. Hand to hand combat is nearly a thing of the past in the military, where as on the streets, it can be an everyday occurrence. That's why I said, If they can be cops, they can be drafted into the army.
BTW, have you ever served in the military?
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