Is It Time To Bring Back The Draft?

Lebanese-Council Coordination Council (LCCC) ^ | 2 June 2008 | Stella L. Jatras

[RightWhale]

Yes. Draft the kid who lives up on the corner. He is halfway from being let out of prison and being put back in. Draft him, save him from himself.

[Allegra]

In the case of Nam, we sent an army of American slaves to fight for somebody else’s freedom; it clearly did not work.

Uh....real nice way to refer to our Vietnam vets.

I have the honor to work with some of these people. I don't think they'd appreciate your characterization one bit.

[dragnet2]

As long as females are drafted to, no problem.

They want equal rights, equal pay, equal everything, then they get equal draft status.

[dragnet2]

Yeah, poll active duty personnel and see if they want draftees working along side them.

So many easily forget, that almost 18,000 draftees gave their lives fighting in Vietnam.

[steve-b]

Socialist crap.

In the American system, we already have "national service" -- the GET A JOB program.

[Sax]

So many easily forget, that almost 18,000 draftees gave their lives fighting in Vietnam.

The greatest of sacrifices in service our Nation.

Saying a draft isn't a good model to staff the US Military under the current circumstances should not be construed as a slight on the honor of anyone in the past who served this country as a draftee.

[djsherin]

I second this.

[PurpleMan]

Well folks, he might not be calling for reinstating the draft but according Gen. William S. Wallace, commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va.:

“The U.S. Army today faces an imminent and menacing threat to our national security. Failure to resolve this problem could leave us vulnerable and our enemies victorious.

The threat? The lack of fully qualified young people to serve in the military.

Many young Americans are willing to serve, but too little is made of the declining number of young people who are qualified to serve. This is the real story and it’s a shocking one. Only 28 percent of the 17- to 24-year-old population qualifies to wear a military uniform. The other 72 percent fail to meet minimum standards on education, character and health. Of those eligible to serve, many choose not to for a variety of reasons.”

http://www.charlotte.com/409/story/647515.html

[joe fonebone]

wow.......pretty interesting stuff...can you explain how the military continues to meet and/or exceed it’s recruitment quota’s?

[PurpleMan]

“...can you explain...” He said it. Contact TRADOC’s PAO monr-tradocpao@conus.army.mil

BTW: Although the recruiting goals are being met, I would be curious to know how many don’t make it thru basic training and/or do not complete their first enlistment. That would be telling.

[E.Allen]

Heinlein had a better idea. Never any draft, but only veterans can vote.

Reasoning is that the most important virtue in a politician is that they put the benefit of the country ahead of their own personal benefit. Some one who has put their own life at risk to protect others is the clearest proof that they can do that.

[Sax]

The spirit of that sentiment is pointing in the right direction.

[oh8eleven]

In the American system, we already have "national service" -- the GET A JOB program.
BS. Private employment has nothing to so with serving the country, nor is it socialist.

[steve-b]

Private employment is how one serves in a CAPITALIST nation. If you prefer to live in a SOCIALIST nation, there ain’t no border guards stopping movement in that direction....

[wendy1946]

My brother and a number of friends served in Nam. Basic cold, hard fact of life in play here: there is no such thing in this world as a cause good enough to draft people for. We need a basic law on the books clearly stating under what circumstances draftees could ever be used in combat and to me at least the bare minimum is a full declaration of war.

[oh8eleven]

WTF are you talking about? Employment had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Your reference to leaving the country is elitist, ignorant and rude. When my time came I went to Parris Island and then Vietnam ... others went to Canada.

[JoeFromSidney]

My father was drafted in WW II, so I believe I know something about that era. At that time it was taken for granted that the draft was a "normal" part of war.

Both I and my younger brother served full careers as volunteers, I in the AF and he in the Marines. I'm glad we've done away with the draft. The all-volunteer force is a much better arrangement.

The problem with people being sent back to Iraq several times is not from the lack of a draft, but from the deliberate decision not to expand the size of the Army. A deliberate tradeoff was made, to reduce the number of troops in order to pay for new equipment. I think it was a bad decision, and the strain on the troops is the price the Army is paying for that decision.

[joe fonebone]

jane fonda, is that you? was your brother’s name john kerry? do you belong to code pink? get lost

[Allegra]

I am not a proponent of the draft by any stretch of the imagination. The only reason the liberals want it is so that they can try to recapture their 60s youth from which they have never emerged.

Today's all-volunteer military severely damps down any enthusiasm for their A.N.S.W.E.R./Code Pike/MoveOn socialistic cause.

I believe our Vietnam vets deserve much better than being called "slaves." I can't imagine anyone other than an aging "flower child" referring to them that way.

[wendy1946]

There was no concensus anywhere in the picture to be had on Nam. I had one or two friends who actually thought there was some sort of a worthy cause over there and others who thought they were being enslaved getting drafted and that was the term you heard. There was an absolutely gigantic march on Washington in November of 69 to protest the war in Nam, and the govt. has always lied about the numbers; other crowds I've seen estiated as high as 200,000 would not begin to compare. I knew several people who were outright warmongers who came back from Nam believing that nothing useful was likely to come of it.

What Nixon needed to do when he took over was to immediately end the use of draftees in Nam and hold a meeting with Pentagon brass and lay out the law which Reagan followed to them, i.e. that you play those kinds of games with petty cash and handsfull of professional soldiers and/or soldiers of fortune and not with draftees or vast sums of treasure, and then if they thought they could win the thing under those rules go for it, or otherwise it should have ended in early 69.