Posted on 01/06/2020 12:11:36 PM PST by rintintin
To his eternal credit, Richard Nixon helped end America's draft. Congress responded to his President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force by discontinuing the draft in 1973.
The United States has set an example that we should encourage other countries to copy.
The commission's report noted that the draft:
"has been a costly, inequitable, and divisive procedure for recruiting men for the armed forces. It has imposed heavy burdens on a small minority of young men while easing slightly the tax burden on the rest of us.
"It has introduced needless uncertainty into the lives of all our young men. It has burdened draft boards with painful decisions about who shall be compelled to serve and who shall be deferred.
"It has weakened the political fabric of our society and impaired the delicate web of shared values that alone enables a free society to exist."
(Excerpt) Read more at gazettetimes.com ...
I guess with all those Rosies, at work they needed all they could find to replace the few guys who were drafted? All my relatives who served in WW II were drafted. HS grads were drafted. MY father was drafted but he was just passed 45, by a couple of months. I don’t recall to many volunteers on my block, then again I was from Bernie’s and Chuckie’s neighborhood where the word for soldier was schmuck. Dec. 21 1962, “Greetings from the President of the USA.” Nice Christmas present. But it turned out well in the end. I’d do it all over again if I could. MY God father was a in the USMC in 45’, and he was drafted. “Once the U.S. entered WWII, draft terms extended through the duration of the fighting. By the end of the war in 1945, 50 million men between eighteen and forty-five had registered for the draft and “10 million” had been inducted in the military.” 14 million and 10M of it were draftees??? Force multipliers are great on paper, but someone has to occupy the territory gained. The need for 14M may arise again, and its better to be prepared for it than wait till the last moment.
Who the F wrote this stupid article. Sounds like a San Francisco hippie of the 70’s.
My father was a lathe operator in a shipyard during WWII. For three years, he begged the draft board to take him, but they just laughed. In late 1944, they finally let him join the Navy Reserve but told him he wasn’t going anywhere.
Approximately 18 million men and women served in the US military during WWII. About 7 million (nearly 40%) were volunteers. A disproportionate fraction of the inductees in 1944 and 1945 were draftees for reasons I mentioned earlier.
Back in the 1980s, I did some contract work for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, on the effectiveness of re-enlistment bonuses on re-enlistment rates. I spoke with many high-ranking officers and civilians) about the all-volunteer army versus the draft. None of them wanted to return to a draft.
Leni
Heinlein was a prophet.
L
It only takes a little will. Probably the first BIG thing I did without my parents permission. Didn't tell them I'd enlisted until the Wednesday before I left. I walked into the County Post Office, in late May, 1970. The Marine Recruiter in his pwetty boo uniform was eating lunch at his desk. Talked to him, signed some forms, gave some references, was told to report to the Chicago induction Center, down town, at 6:00am, 12 June, for a physical. It wasn't that hard.
That morning, I got to watch some little fairy whine that he couldn't go because he had hemorrhoids, and was waving his tighty whites to prove it. I took a written test, maxxed it, (I usually do, on tests.), and about an hour later a bunch of us stood up and took an oath.
The Marine NCO there asked if I wanted to go to MCRD San Diego, tonight, or Parris Island next week. I'd never been to California, so...
The same guy told me that I was in charge of the ten of us going to SD, and that we had a 90 minute layover at LAX. He pointed out two that I was supposed to keep special track of, and they put us on a bus to O'Hare about 3:00. On Continental to LAX, 4 hours, arrived about 8:30, local time. You could still smoke.
My two black kids, Washington and Applewhite, vanished as we hit the concourse. I kept the other eight rounded up, convinced that my career was over before it started. As they announced our flight to San Diego, Washington and Applewhite showed up, with Nipsy Russell, a second tier comic I'd seen on Carson, in tow. He warned us that Marine DIs would punch us in the stomach. I thought he was a lightweight, and we were boarding, so I thanked him for the heads up and herded the cattle aboard.
An hour later, we landed in the dark for another bus ride. It was foggy, and dark. A shape with a Mountie Hat got on the bus and started screaming...
I ran into one of those guys, three years later, for 10 minutes, at LeJeune. He'd been been hit in the face with steel from a motor round, in I Corps. He was finally back on active duty, but we only had a few months left. Never saw him again.
Perhaps - it would also have us supporting a LOT of deadbeats who don’t want to be there and erode morale of those who do want to be there.
Always 2 sides - i was part of the last draft lottery and my number was 300 and they took up to number 62 or so...I joined a year later and spent 24 in uniform and another 15 training those in uniform...
When a lady walked up to me while I was in uniform and loudly proclaimed "No son of mine will join the Marines", I told her "I Didn't ask my mom to join and when your son is a man, he won't ask you either".
Hopefully your son will be a man even if you never were.
“Sounds like a San Francisco hippie of the 70’s.”
The article praises Nixon for ending the draft. You call the writer a San Francisco hippie, but I don’t remember hippies liking Nixon.
You call the writer a San Francisco hippie, but I don’t remember hippies liking Nixon.
******
San Fran hippies like who and what they’re told to like when they’re told to like them/it by their thought bosses, just like every other version of SJW.
NPCs follow programmed scripts, not independent thought.
Which I really don’t get. Nixon did a lot of things that the hippies should have loved.
But, to them, Nixon was always associated with HUAC.
Nixon didn’t end the draft to appease the hippies, but to appease his own constituency - Middle America, which was tired of having their kids conscripted to be sent to Vietnam.
BTW, Middle America grew tired of George Bush’s war too. That’s what elected Obama, and leaves Bush even today as one of the most unpopular presidents. Trump needs to take note. A war against Iran risks making him a failure like Bush, instead of a success like Reagan, who launched no wars.
Why should people with no skin in the game have a right to tell the ones that do, what they have to do.
And point of fact, only about 40% of people eligible to vote do so anyway.
So I just don’t think I would have to kill all that many.
Nixon was a Republican! Democrats do not like or praise Republicans regardless of what they do. George Bush tried for his entire presidency to get the Democrats or the Media to like him. did not work.
Anyway, your point is that one statement refutes the entire truth of my post.
You are free to disagree.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.