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The draft is a thing of the past. Our military is so highly specialized and technologically advanced that you would have to put new recruits through months and months of training only to find the majority leave once their serving time is up. That is a lot of money wasted in training people that most likely don't want to be there in the first place.
Today the majority of US servicemembers get out after their first enlistment is over.
Only a minority stay in for a second enlistment.
Only a tiny minority stay in and make it a career.
The draft is a thing of the past. Our military is so highly specialized and technologically advanced that you would have to put new recruits through months and months of training only to find the majority leave once their serving time is up. That is a lot of money wasted in training people that most likely don't want to be there in the first place.
I question how "well trained" some of the Reservists and Guard members were who got sent to Iraq.
Remember that female GI with the cigarette in her mouth in those Iraqi prison videos ?
They gave her military training resume and it sounded like the only AIT training she recieved was in the back sat of a car.
------ANY---drafte would have been better trained and served more honorably !
Numerous studies and research has shown that the Vietnam era draftees were no more of a problem than those that volunteered in terms of morale and disciplinary issues. In fact, draftees pulled in people to serve who actually enhanced the effectiveness of the units they were eventually assigned to. Also, it is a myth that draftees suffered casualty rates in excess of those who volunteered to enlist. My older brother was drafted during that time and I work with numerous people who were either drafted or volunteered during the Vietnam conflict and the caliber of their character in my opinion is just as good if not better than that of the current force. I say this from experience since I am still serving in the ARNG now coming on thirty years and have a deployment to OEF this fall after which I'll finally call it.
I served during that time and have to disagree. Basically there were some pretty terrible people that were drafted in those days and alot of drugs even in the service.Many actually became alocholics and drug users in vietnam. I have to say that it was a pretty bad period for the services altho not all but I even remmeber people who never shouldn't have been in the service because their physical condition that had been 4F for years before. many that served then with criminal records wouldn't even be considered now.
I question how "well trained" some of the Reservists and Guard members were who got sent to Iraq.
Remember that female GI with the cigarette in her mouth in those Iraqi prison videos ?
They gave her military training resume and it sounded like the only AIT training she recieved was in the back sat of a car.
------ANY---drafte would have been better trained and served more honorably !
Well trained and using good judgment don't go hand in hand. And while what that female GI did was undoubtedly stupid she is the perfect example of how modern everyday technology such as cell phones and small digital cameras have changed how we view war. If such devices existed during Vietnam, Korea, WWI and WWII we might have seen similar or even worst situations.
Also i know plenty of people who if drafted would dodge or would immediately try to get discharged. And in Vietnam we saw plenty of draftees who did not serve our country honorably.
The draft is a style of thinking that worked for wars 50 years ago. Why should young men be forced into fighting a war for the good ole boys in DC anyway? The battles of the future are not going to require massive amounts of infantry as they once did but instead be conducted by highly trained special forces and a powerful air force.
I don't think there should be a draft but I do believe we should have a mandatory service commitment for everyone at designated ages. We definitely need more disciplined youths and this would also eliminate leaders from keeping kids out of the military.
conducted by highly trained special forces and a powerful air force.
Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan proved that concept stupid. That's why we were bogged down in Iraq for 4 years until the brass figured out that maybe if we send more conventional forces we can turn the tide and so wen did The Surge ... and it worked. That concept is also why we are royally beeped and doomed to an endless war in Afghanistan and why Bin Laden got away.
War requires one to seize and control territory and you can't do that with a few 12 man US Army Special Forces ODAs or a B-52 bomber or a few F-22s.
Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan proved that concept stupid. That's why we were bogged down in Iraq for 4 years until the brass figured out that maybe if we send more conventional forces we can turn the tide and so wen did The Surge ... and it worked. That concept is also why we are royally beeped and doomed to an endless war in Afghanistan and why Bin Laden got away.
War requires one to seize and control territory and you can't do that with a few 12 man US Army Special Forces ODAs or a B-52 bomber or a few F-22s.
Bin Laden got away because the resources that should have been devoted to catching him were instead diverted to Iraq, where we should have never been.
There was almost an entire year in between the colossal epic failures at Tora Bora and Operation Anaconda and the start of the Iraq War.
The so called "massive" Operation Anaconda for instance involved only about 2,000 troops on the ground most of whom were Afghan National Alliance fighters and their Special Forces advisers with company sized units from the 10th Mountain Division's 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry and the 101st Airborne Division's 187th Parachute Infantry Regiment and token contributions from the UK, Canadian, Dutch, German, French, Australian, Danish and New Zealand forces.
The real failure lies with the downsizing of the US military in the 1990s by one William Jefferson Clinton. The US Army for example dropped from 780,000 active duty to 480,000 active duty under Clinton.
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