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The Great Draft Dodge: Karl Eikenberry and what Americans lost when they stopped fighting
National Journal ^ | December 13, 2014 | James Kitfield

Posted on 12/15/2014 10:06:12 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

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To: GeronL

God forbid you should ever have been asked to defend the country you live in.


81 posted on 12/16/2014 7:09:07 PM PST by Pelham (Treason, not just for Democrats anymore)
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To: DesertRhino

“Eikenberry does not advocate a return to the draft. “


82 posted on 12/16/2014 7:11:44 PM PST by Pelham (Treason, not just for Democrats anymore)
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To: Old North State; zeugma

We have also ended up with a Congress that has virtually no members with experience in the military. And that’s not good for an institution responsible for sending them into war.


83 posted on 12/16/2014 7:21:38 PM PST by Pelham (Treason, not just for Democrats anymore)
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To: GeronL
"serve the state, comrade!

Be a leach and let others keep the nation safe.

84 posted on 12/16/2014 7:24:39 PM PST by Pelham (Treason, not just for Democrats anymore)
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To: LS

What was your alternative to catching up with the Wehrmacht and the German war machine, somehow fantasize about millions of volunteers in the 1930s American Army?

Have 60% of our 1935 youths in the Hitler Youth for military preparation, and then a mandatory 6 months drafted into the government labor service which further honed their military skills. and then drafted into the Wehrmacht, where by age 19 or 20 years of age they already had 10 years of military preparation?

Germany drafted from 1935 to 1945.

Would you have had America duplicate the German experience with conscription and the draft, to the tune of millions, to avoid the learning curve that our GIs faced?


85 posted on 12/16/2014 8:02:37 PM PST by ansel12
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To: Pelham

who am I leaching off of if I do not bow down to all master government


86 posted on 12/16/2014 8:12:31 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: GeronL
who am I leaching off of if I do not bow down to all master government

There you go again, insulting millions of vets who answered the call and fought for our nation.

Thank a draftee that you aren't speaking German, or Russian.

87 posted on 12/16/2014 8:33:22 PM PST by ansel12
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To: ansel12

I am not insulting anyone who joined the military or fought in wars. I am discussing the idea of people owing part of their lives to the government. I do not share that idea.


88 posted on 12/16/2014 8:49:20 PM PST by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: GeronL

Sure you are, you keep doing it, and then pretending you aren’t.

You are insulting millions of American vets who answered the draft call. Of course earlier you were insulting a 28 year Marine who probably enlisted to fight the commies who called each other “comrade”, the insult that you chose to mock him with.

Go visit an American Legion hall and thank a WWII draftee that you aren’t speaking German, or Russian, or you could call them slaves instead, or perhaps the less aged draftee vets of the Korean war, or Vietnam war, by mocking them with “comrade”.


89 posted on 12/16/2014 9:24:06 PM PST by ansel12
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To: GeronL

Fortunately ‘duty’ and ‘unselfishness’ are common enough among your neighbors to allow you to enjoy your life with contributing anything.


90 posted on 12/17/2014 1:08:48 AM PST by Pelham (Treason, not just for Democrats anymore)
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To: Chainmail

I think two major things are being overlooked.

That the German military was very much drafted, and then something more relevant to the American draft.

If I had the choice between getting 1 million teen volunteers and them receiving rudimentary and quick training for war, or 1 million teen draftees, and getting to give them the training that I would like to establish, then I would take the choice of training, over whatever put the young men into my hands.

There is a reason that well trained troops without combat experience can so outshine experienced combat troops, and Americans see it all the time.

We can go 15 or 20 years without combat, but then we send in our combat ready units against combat veterans and we expect our guys to win, and we sure count on it from our elite units, who, without combat experience themselves, are counted on to enter enemy territory and defeat combat hardened soldiers and outfight them man for man, and do it like a well oiled machine. Training.


91 posted on 12/17/2014 1:42:54 PM PST by ansel12
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To: ansel12

Couldn’t agree with you more: we’re good material and nobody on Earth is more ferocious or courageous than we are. Training and leadership are the keys and our troops will always take it from there.

The best the Germans had didn’t have a chance.


92 posted on 12/17/2014 5:36:58 PM PST by Chainmail (A simple rule of life: if you can be blamed, you're responsible.)
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