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Bang / Guns Title: This nation does not need the draft This nation does not need the draft By Michael A. Thiac A proposal to include women in the military draft, supported in Congressional testimony by the heads of the Marine Corps and Army, was stripped from the National Defense Authorization Act by a close vote of the House Rules Committee this week. But agitation for universal military conscription will continue, sometimes from the left, so “so that Americans ‘feel the burden’ of ongoing military operations against Islamic militants, will not go away.” After 23 years of military service, it is clear to me that a universal draft is not essential, and indeed would be harmful to our national security. Asking everyone to serve would be a disaster. Assume you put in a draft of “every” high school graduate. Approximately 3.9 million people turn 18 each year in the United States. Say of those, 80% are “fit” for military service (i.e., meet height/weight requirements, no issue with narcotics use, no criminal issues), you are talking of induction of 3.2 million people a year. This is a World War II level of forced public service when we are not at war with major powers. If this is a two-year draft enlistment (what was used in Vietnam, as opposed to “the duration” during WWII), the armed forces will have to in-process and train them. The Army (and the other services) don’t have the facilities to in-process that many men and women right now. Can you imagine the cost of bringing online multiple basic training posts throughout the county? Currently we induct approximately 200K a year across all four branches of service, enlisted and officers. A draft could increase this by more than a factor of 15! Now follow this some more. Army Basic Training is 9-10 weeks. What do you do with the people who “fail,” i.e. are overweight, do not meet standards on physical training tests, “fail” a urinalysis test, etc. Currently we throw them out. How many people will we throw out after we spend the resources to bring them in? Please don’t tell me others, not wanting to be forced to “serve,” will not deliberately do something to be excused. What will you do then? Put them in prison? Send them home? Then you have to get them to Advanced Individual Training, a school that can be two to over twelve months, depending on the specialty. Say for good measure, combining travel and casual status, 3 months Basic, 3 months AIT. That’s half a year. Get them to a new unit, and it takes a few months to get into the swing of things. Next thing you know, Private Snuffy has less than a year left. And he’s counting down days. Because he never wanted to be there and if you give him an order and he refuses, what do you do? Put him in the stockade? Throw him out? Either you keep a disruptive man in a unit, or you throw him out, either way you weaken the outfit. One of the greatest things needed for an effective unit is cohesion. With constant turnaround caused by draftees this will only degrade us. If a draft is implemented for further social engineering, the Pentagon would have to spend a fortune (which we don’t have) to put people in who don’t want to be there, train them and send them out. Such a massive waste of resources would only weaken our nation’s defense. We need a highly trained, professional service. Some draft advocates argue that while everyone should be subject to the draft, a smaller number wound be inducted on the basis of a lottery. Shades of the Vietnam War era, when a lottery was conducted on the basis of date of birth. This would still raise many problems. First requirement: we need the armed forced manned by people who want to serve, for whatever reason. Personal (“I want to get away from Mom for a bit and figure out what I want to do with my life”), professional (“They will give me training that will cost me a fortune in the private sector, or I get the GI Bill for college”), or patriotism (I want to serve my country), or a combination of the three. One of the greatest successes of this nation in the latter part of the 20th Century is the all- volunteer service. The Pentagon spent years and billions of dollars in a massive effort by experts to recover from the disaster of Vietnam. We came back with a fully professional, highly trained and functional military service. It is going to take years, billions of dollars and hard work from professionals to recover from the damage inflicted over the last seven years. Another suggestion of the people pushing “mandated service” is some type of civilian service. We’ve tried that with AmeriCorps, aka “ClintonCorps,” and found it’s nothing but a massive waste of money, per the OMB and GAO. Also, what do you want these 18 year olds doing? Pick up trash on the side of the road? Clean up parks? Go into “communities” and organize the vote for Democrats? Are you going to pay these people or is this indentured servitude? How much will that cost? All the while the people could be working in the private sector paying taxes. Also, if I live in a rural areaand there is nothing for these “public servants” to do, will you make me move to a city where “public service” is needed? How do you determine who needs “public service”? What are you going to do when 40 thousand people say, “Hell no, I won’t go…” Are you ready to put thousands in prison if they refuse? How much will that cost? What if they run off to Canada again? What are you going to do? But more to the fact, why should an older generation, who have mostly not served in America in her armed forces (nor otherwise gave years of their young lives volunteering), tell the upcoming generation “you must earn your citizenship in a way we were not burdened with”? Our founding documents recognize the supremacy of the individual over the collective, “…that we, as individuals, have a right to live, live freely and pursue that which motives us not because man or some government says so, but because those are God-given natural rights.” (emphasis mine) (Levin, 2009, 2-3)[1] OK, I have a bit of a radical idea. If you are an adult, what you want to do with your life is…get this…your decision. This is a free country (to a lesser degree in times past, especially after the last 7 years). You want to go to college, fine. You want to go to the service, fine. Get a job somewhere, fine. Work at McDonald’s while staying in mom’s basement -- that is your business. As long as you obey the law and support yourself, so be it. You are not provided with freebees, you get from us nothing. Freedom means you have opportunity, not guarantees. In my younger days I believed in mandatory service for the young people. But spending 23 years in my country’s uniform and knowing how the Army (and the other services) needed to clean up in the 1970s and the issues they had with draftees, I changed my view. One of the major successes of the US has been the all-volunteer service. I would rather have 5 people who want to be there than 10 who are counting down days from the moment they get there. Michael A. Thiac is a police patrol sergeant and a retired Army intelligence officer. When not patrolling the streets, he can be found on A Cop’s Watch. [1] Levin, Mark R, Liberty and Tyranny”: New York: Threshold, 2009 A proposal to include women in the military draft, supported in Congressional testimony by the heads of the Marine Corps and Army, was stripped from the National Defense Authorization Act by a close vote of the House Rules Committee this week. But agitation for universal military conscription will continue, sometimes from the left, so “so that Americans ‘feel the burden’ of ongoing military operations against Islamic militants, will not go away.” After 23 years of military service, it is clear to me that a universal draft is not essential, and indeed would be harmful to our national security. Asking everyone to serve would be a disaster. Assume you put in a draft of “every” high school graduate. Approximately 3.9 million people turn 18 each year in the United States. Say of those, 80% are “fit” for military service (i.e., meet height/weight requirements, no issue with narcotics use, no criminal issues), you are talking of induction of 3.2 million people a year. This is a World War II level of forced public service when we are not at war with major powers. If this is a two-year draft enlistment (what was used in Vietnam, as opposed to “the duration” during WWII), the armed forces will have to in-process and train them. The Army (and the other services) don’t have the facilities to in-process that many men and women right now. Can you imagine the cost of bringing online multiple basic training posts throughout the county? Currently we induct approximately 200K a year across all four branches of service, enlisted and officers. A draft could increase this by more than a factor of 15! Now follow this some more. Army Basic Training is 9-10 weeks. What do you do with the people who “fail,” i.e. are overweight, do not meet standards on physical training tests, “fail” a urinalysis test, etc. Currently we throw them out. How many people will we throw out after we spend the resources to bring them in? Please don’t tell me others, not wanting to be forced to “serve,” will not deliberately do something to be excused. What will you do then? Put them in prison? Send them home? Then you have to get them to Advanced Individual Training, a school that can be two to over twelve months, depending on the specialty. Say for good measure, combining travel and casual status, 3 months Basic, 3 months AIT. That’s half a year. Get them to a new unit, and it takes a few months to get into the swing of things. Next thing you know, Private Snuffy has less than a year left. And he’s counting down days. Because he never wanted to be there and if you give him an order and he refuses, what do you do? Put him in the stockade? Throw him out? Either you keep a disruptive man in a unit, or you throw him out, either way you weaken the outfit. One of the greatest things needed for an effective unit is cohesion. With constant turnaround caused by draftees this will only degrade us. If a draft is implemented for further social engineering, the Pentagon would have to spend a fortune (which we don’t have) to put people in who don’t want to be there, train them and send them out. Such a massive waste of resources would only weaken our nation’s defense. We need a highly trained, professional service. Some draft advocates argue that while everyone should be subject to the draft, a smaller number wound be inducted on the basis of a lottery. Shades of the Vietnam War era, when a lottery was conducted on the basis of date of birth. This would still raise many problems. First requirement: we need the armed forced manned by people who want to serve, for whatever reason. Personal (“I want to get away from Mom for a bit and figure out what I want to do with my life”), professional (“They will give me training that will cost me a fortune in the private sector, or I get the GI Bill for college”), or patriotism (I want to serve my country), or a combination of the three. One of the greatest successes of this nation in the latter part of the 20th Century is the all- volunteer service. The Pentagon spent years and billions of dollars in a massive effort by experts to recover from the disaster of Vietnam. We came back with a fully professional, highly trained and functional military service. It is going to take years, billions of dollars and hard work from professionals to recover from the damage inflicted over the last seven years. Another suggestion of the people pushing “mandated service” is some type of civilian service. We’ve tried that with AmeriCorps, aka “ClintonCorps,” and found it’s nothing but a massive waste of money, per the OMB and GAO. Also, what do you want these 18 year olds doing? Pick up trash on the side of the road? Clean up parks? Go into “communities” and organize the vote for Democrats? Are you going to pay these people or is this indentured servitude? How much will that cost? All the while the people could be working in the private sector paying taxes. Also, if I live in a rural areaand there is nothing for these “public servants” to do, will you make me move to a city where “public service” is needed? How do you determine who needs “public service”? What are you going to do when 40 thousand people say, “Hell no, I won’t go…” Are you ready to put thousands in prison if they refuse? How much will that cost? What if they run off to Canada again? What are you going to do? But more to the fact, why should an older generation, who have mostly not served in America in her armed forces (nor otherwise gave years of their young lives volunteering), tell the upcoming generation “you must earn your citizenship in a way we were not burdened with”? Our founding documents recognize the supremacy of the individual over the collective, “…that we, as individuals, have a right to live, live freely and pursue that which motives us not because man or some government says so, but because those are God-given natural rights.” (emphasis mine) (Levin, 2009, 2-3)[1] OK, I have a bit of a radical idea. If you are an adult, what you want to do with your life is…get this…your decision. This is a free country (to a lesser degree in times past, especially after the last 7 years). You want to go to college, fine. You want to go to the service, fine. Get a job somewhere, fine. Work at McDonald’s while staying in mom’s basement -- that is your business. As long as you obey the law and support yourself, so be it. You are not provided with freebees, you get from us nothing. Freedom means you have opportunity, not guarantees. In my younger days I believed in mandatory service for the young people. But spending 23 years in my country’s uniform and knowing how the Army (and the other services) needed to clean up in the 1970s and the issues they had with draftees, I changed my view. One of the major successes of the US has been the all-volunteer service. I would rather have 5 people who want to be there than 10 who are counting down days from the moment they get there. Michael A. Thiac is a police patrol sergeant and a retired Army intelligence officer. When not patrolling the streets, he can be found on A Cop’s Watch. Read more: www.americanthinker.com/a...s/2016/05/this_nation_doe s_not_need_the_draft.html#ixzz49KgBSsAg Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 28.
#12. To: tpaine (#0)
There has not been any draft for about 40 years. The proposal was to make mandatory for women, signing up with the Selective Service System at age 18, as is the case with men. Actually drafting women for combat roles, or members of the LGBTQ community, is a bad idea. Some may be physically able to perform whatever role there is. My judgment call is that it would result in a weaker fighting force than an all-male military. Military combat is not a good place for social experimentation. A downside of the all-volunteer force is that the best, brightest, and the richest are generally not included. Millionaires and billionaires control the levers of political power and can decide to engage in wars or conflicts for corporate profit, while not endangering any of the elite's children. This guy is smoking some good shit. We came back with the most expensive hi-tech toys in the history of the planet. When the men were sent into a combat situation, they lacked the basics such as up-armored personnel carriers and bullet-proof vests, not to mention enough men and equipment, including ships and aircraft. http://wtkr.com/2013/05/02/enlisted-forced-out-while-navy-has-more-admirals-than-ships/ Posted 4:55 pm, May 2, 2013 Norfolk, Va. - In World War II, there were 30 Navy ships for every admiral. Now, the Navy has more admirals than ships. That's a point not lost on Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner. "I want to see the Pentagon cut back on some of this “brass creep” both in terms of numbers and some of these perks," Warner said. Not long ago, the Navy forced out 3,000 mid-career sailors. Military budget cuts have scrapped air shows, delayed deployments, and threatened civilian contractors with two-week furloughs. Craig Quigley, a retired rear admiral who heads the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, says the cuts -- while not as bad as first feared -- will ripple past the local bases. "You’re not going to buy the new car, you’re going to fix up the old one. You might cancel the family vacation. You are going to have to adjust your own household finances to accommodate 14 days without pay," he said. "If you are a small business with only a handful of employees, you might not survive." At the same time, the Pentagon has added admirals and generals. There are now nearly a thousand. Many of those top officers are surrounded with entourages including chauffeurs, chefs and executive aids. Top flag officers have private jets always at the ready. They live in sometimes palatial homes and frequently travel in motorcades. Former Democratic Senator Jim Webb asked the Pentagon why the Air Force has more four-star generals than the Army, even though the Army has almost twice the manpower. Across all service branches, Warner said, the number of people at the bottom has shrunk while the number of generals and admirals has swelled. [...] A top-heavy military is not one built to win wars. For a collection of essays on Conscription, below is a pretty good book. by Martin Anderson (Editor) 15 Used from $5.72 Series: Hoover Institution Press Publication (Book 258) The writers run the gamut from Ben Franklin, Elihu Root, and James Monroe to modern writers.
Now that you've made your typical display of erudition: -- How do you feel bout the constitutional boot camp idea, -- no camp, no vote?
How do you feel bout the constitutional boot camp idea, -- no camp, no vote? No go. Not everyone is boot camp material. I would not want everyone, unscreened, put in a boot camp and have a weapon put in their hands (in the Navy, it was almost always just a piece). There's dopers, dead heads and the whole LBGTQ community, and guys with a long rap sheet that they are unable to read. I just do not see it as workable on a scale of EVERYONE. We have a population of ~330 million. If only 1% turns 18 each year, training would be needed for 3.3 million per year. The logistics of the matter must be considered. And, it would be quite a funding challenge. Rather than only after high school, perhaps have some sort of training available during high school, or during the summer break between junior and senior. Age would be a factor as many graduate high school under 18. I would not tie any such training to voting. Perhaps completion of training could be tied to government employment, e.g., people who complete the training receive a 50 point multiple added to their civil service test score and must receive first priority in all appointments. And then there are conscientious objectors to consider. No camp, no vote is probably unconstitutional. I do not see the Federal authority to pass such a law. Incentives to complete training might pass muster. If they can give a 5-point multiple for 20 years of active duty service, they should be able to give a 50 point multiple for basic training, if they so choose.
I'm in favor of a short 'boot camp' type service, for EVERYONE, shortly after high school, as a precondition before they get the vote.. -- No camp, no vote, ---- This would require a constitutional amendment, of course.. Objectors of every stripe would not be required to attend, but would not get to vote, -- solving a LOT of our political problems, voluntarily...
To get such a constitutional amendment you would have to get a significant majority of the voters to agree to disenfranchise themselves. I would assess that as a political impossibility. Were you able to overcome that impossibility, you would encounter the obvious logistical problem of an inability to offer such "boot camp" type service to 3 to 4 million new 18-year olds each year. Once the Federal government is empowered to dictate that all must complete a mandatory boot camp in order to vote, I can only imagine what an Obama federal government would find the authority to include in the mandatory boot camp training. I'll pass on giving such a massive grant of power to the Federal government.
I'm in favor of a short 'boot camp' type service, for EVERYONE, shortly after high school, as a precondition before they get the vote.. -- No camp, no vote, ---- This would require a constitutional amendment, of course.. One hundred years ago, I would have bet that the income tax amendment was a political impossibility. We cope with putting them all through 4 years of high school, - so 8 weeks of constitutional boot camp should be possible. It would be a constitutional amendment, -- one that could specify the power of ANY level of govt to " include mandatory training". Isn't it typical that nolu, a Statist, would view every proposal through a statist curtain...
Is it really voluntary when the conditions are: "Go to the boot camp or you can't vote"?
#29. To: Deckard (#28)
I like how you handle your Paultard pals with kid gloves... while that pal is espousing the greatest amount of freedom loss... mandatory military service. That has the taste of communist China with a little shit flavor on the side. But please, carry on treating me like shit because I don't have a problem with you stopping your car for 5 seconds at a DWI check point. lol
I indicated above we could make it voluntary. Read much? How many times have we been told that, -- 'voting is a privilege, not a right'? You want to exercise your privilege to vote? Study up on our Constitution...
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