[Billthedrill]

Good Lord, no! I served in the Navy during both the draft and the all-volunteer eras and there is absolutely no comparison in terms of quality of sailor. The premise that the military has been ruined by two wars encompassing two decades and costing 6400 lives is ludicrous. The premise that the military has grown out of touch with the civilian community is ridiculous. The premise that a draft will do anything but alienate the draft-age cohort against the military and populate the latter's ranks with anyone but people who do not want to be there is simply unrealistic and unheeding of every lesson the Vietnam era taught us.

Blaming the country's economic woes on military expenditure is simplistic nonsense. These are world-wide issues, as a glance at Europe, Africa, and most of Asia reveals instantly. Moreover, the idea that a drafted military will be somehow more efficient runs counter to history; it will be the opposite.

The really insidious argument in all of this is the suggestion that a military populated by voters' sons and daughters (as if the current one is populated by anyone else) will encourage the latter to avoid military engagements. Has it ever done so? Shall we cite Korea and Vietnam as examples? At what point were the voters ever consulted about these engagements anyway? Are they ever?

I hear a lot of this from aging liberals who regard the popular dissent against Vietnam to have been somehow healthy for the country and the world in general, and who would like to relive their highly edited memories of a halcyon age. Let us remind them of the result - a military that really was derided, ridiculed, and marginalized, whose members were blamed for all the horrors of war and held in systematic contempt by media and popular culture. That was a drafted military. That was how the country treated a drafted military. I was there and I swore never to let that happen again. And it hasn't, and it won't so long as I have a voice.

[MSF BU]

You mean the navy of unwed mothers, reduced standards and sodomite submariners is better than the navy of Admiral Halsey?

[USMA '71]

BRAVO ! For a Navy man you sure got your $hit together.

[okie01]

The premise that the military has grown out of touch with the civilian community is ridiculous.

Of course, it is.

But there is a very real problem: About half of the civilian community IS out of touch with the military. The leftward half...

[ansel12]

The draft military did great in Vietnam, but eventually the years of massive combat without purpose, led to a disgruntled military.

The Vietnam war was really about a 75% volunteer military anyway, it was WWII that was the draftee war.

The Navy didn’t draft during the Vietnam war as they had in large numbers during WWII, only the Marines and Army did.

Popularity for the Vietnam war, was highest among the under 30s, who also voted for Nixon by 52% in the 1972 election, by the way.