“The Vietnam era military was the finest we had ever had, and it was overwhelmingly volunteer, with the draft merely used to fill in what came up short from recruitment,”
This is repeating some of the revisionist nonsense that is floating around the internet these day. First, the Air Force and the Navy never used the draft, so the number of draftees in the Army and Marines was much higher. Secondly, in every branch of the service there were “draft consequences” people. These were guys that only joined to avoid being drafted. They didn’t want to be there and they didn’t give a dam. I can tell you from first hand experience there were many of them in the Air Force. Luckily the force was large enough that we could usually find some dipsh@t job to put them on so that their lack of interest and attention didn’t endanger anyone’s life.
The ones that were actual volunteers WERE great. Probably half the friends I have today fit in that category. But to a man they don’t and won’t ever advocate a draft.
And as far as: “and that is devouring our budgets in pay, benefits, day care, and supporting families, gynecologists, pediatricians and quality of life issues.”
If it’s such an overpaid gravy train, why do we still have to spend millions a year to get people to enlist? The money we spend on our military is the LEAST of our problems. The main problem - welfare - which by the way is TWICE the amount of defense spending.
The Navy and Air force did not use the draft during the Vietnam war, even the Army was overwhelmingly volunteers unlike the WWII Army.
I volunteered for the army and it had nothing to do with the draft, drafted or volunteer, the men were interchangeable, unlike today’s females who can never be a man.
We had the draft for 33 years and it served us well, the volunteer military isn’t working, as we learned after 9/11, when the military had to start accepting grandmothers in their 40s in an effort to make up for the lack of enlistments, although our manpower needs were small, and our population huge.
Better a drafted 18 year old Marine who grows up in basic training than a teen girl or his mom being hired in his place, a girl who will never be a man.
After 40 years and 2 wars and in the face of a China buildup, we have learned that an all volunteer military doesn’t work, it is too weak and tiny to do much, our dealings with China and hostile alliances will become based on the cold fact that we can’t meet and defeat them on the battlefield, and the social engineering and clamor for ever increasing pay, benefits, and quality of life issues, will eventually turn our military into merely another federal job, either unionized, or the same as unionized.
In time our military will be half female, liberal, isolated from citizens and they will all be career people, and patriotism and sacrifice will be replaced by the usual government employee demands for more goodies and an easier life that is less risky and less demanding, and that is absolutely about social equality and job fairness.
The military will eventually become hostile to the people and a democratic voting block.
Really it is probably too late to use a draft to save the military, even a draft will be corrupted to hire females.
I think the left has won their war against the military.