Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13, 2007 – The all-volunteer military force is serving the nation well, and no one in the Pentagon is considering a return to a military draft, a Defense Department official said today. “There is absolutely no consideration being given to reinstituting a draft,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today during a morning meeting with reporters. Whitman said the current all-volunteer force is doing the job, and doing it well. “The all-volunteer force has surpassed all of the expectations of its founders,” Whitman said. “The volunteer force is more experienced, more motivated to serve and reenlist. It’s more educated,...

The military could ease its manpower shortage by letting foreigners join up. It is hard to pick up a newspaper these days without reading about Army and Marine Corps recruiting and retention woes. Nonstop deployments and the danger faced by troops in Iraq are making it hard for both services to fill their ranks. The same goes for the National Guard and Reserves. (The Navy and Air Force, which are much less in harm's way, have no such difficulty.) Just to stay at their present sizes, the Army and Marines are shoveling money into more advertising, extra recruiters and bigger...

WASHINGTON - The Army will prevent soldiers in units set to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan from leaving the service at the end of their terms, a top general said Wednesday. The announcement, an expansion of an Army program called "stop-loss," means that thousands of soldiers who had expected to retire or otherwise leave the military will have to stay on for the duration of their deployment to those combat zones. The expansion affects units that are 90 days away or less from deploying, said Lt. Gen. Frank L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel. Commanders...