Initiation of an Active Draft in the US.

timber you know i not agin you, we both been there, and i was not drafted, I enlisted, but there is a dangerous loss of perspective from a standing army. a meatgrinder war brings war back to the reality it needs to be seen from.

And I ain't about to diss you, Dys. I figure we've spent a helluva lot of money to make sure that from now on our military will operate the meatgrinder, not feed it.

Yes---let's do go backward in time to the time of parity of weapons when the casualties were counted in the thousands and hundreds of thousand instead of ten and twenties as now. Back to the time when we had a cadre of professional officers and non-coms who will desperately try to train hundreds of thousands of draftees who will be sent over a cliff to their deaths because they are poorly trained and with weapons that are essentially the same as the enemies----one step above clubs and spears.

NO thanks----I much prefer the vast superiority we now have due to the pragmatism of a large contingent of non-partisan politicians who can still remember the horror of hoping we can "catch up" in time.

BTW---I got half way through Eisenhowers biography before I realized he had gotten to such a high level because he was Mr. Congeniality but not much else.
The North Korean dilemma is Eisenhowers legacy to us.

yeah we should nuked the commies and the gooks.

Dys

You said that----and you alone.

and all this time i thought Goldwater said that.

Regardless of who said it, it's wrong to use such means. People do joke about it or they may feel that it's the way to an answer for a short time, but in truth it is very wrong.

It sure as hell isn't efficient; glowing rubble offers little prospect of profitable trade.

Perception- May I respectfully refer you to a great book on Eisenhower- "The Hidden Hand Presidency by Dr. Fred Greenstein- Professor of Political Science at Princeton and arguable the nation's leading Presidential Historian.

Hey Timber good to see you. And good to see things in the politcal forums remain the same or not.

Hobibob seems to be unaware that the Services have fulfilled thier quotas this year. How sloppy of a "Scholar \" to make such an egregous error. Maybe he was thinking of the French Foreign Legion.

Perception and Timber are quite correct. A professional Army is far superior to draftees and as has been noted, the services have filled their quotas for the year.

And as for the draft, Hobibit is whistling in the dark.

He "wishes" the draft will be re-established.

I can say categorically that it will not be re-established- at least not until November 3rd 2004, if at all.

Now I'm thinking more along the lines of why would anyone want to reinstate the draft? With today's extreme lack of patriotism, woudn't hte attitudes of people forced into service greatly reduce moral and possibly quality of life for those who chose to join, and for those who may not want to join but are willing and up to the task? It seems to me that the draft would greatly reduce the quality of our military.

Eastree:

Don't be influenced by the comments about nukes and such, no one on this thread advocates the use of WMD
but to be honest I'm very thankfull we have our vast arsenal instead of the bad guys-----many on this thread think we are the bad guys but our track record says different.

Glad to see we have an active duty participant---welcome to A2K-----give us your appraisal of the moral of the troops----many of us are retired or ex-military and I for one would be interested in you bringing us up-to-date on things like retention prospects and moral.

Well, perception, there's a lot that can't be seen about morale, since it realy comes down to the work center. However, I can say that there is a lot of disapointment im the career foelds which the military is phazing out to save money by hiring contractors. This is sadly happening to my carrer field (AFSC/MOS) and at my next base, I wil be a proud member of one of the last squadrons in the Air Force which do engineering and installation. Contractors are taking over radio maintenance, aircraft maintenance, records (MPF -- I don't know for any other branch), and many other career fields. The saddest part is the fact that we have to watch our military careers slowly be taken away from us, base by base. It is also part of the military down-sizing plan. I have my gripes about this, but they can wait until another time. Retention is becoming a very interesting issue right now. A lot of people in technical fields are still seeing data from recent years that show how much more they can make outside the military than in. Some like the military and plan th go as long as the government will allow them. Some people only want the easy life with the benefits so, as they put it, they are willing to play the game. Others say they're willing but only if they commission. That's another hot topic for me -- classes offered at over-seas bases. But that falls outside the time constraints of this post.

Decorations are now only given to peole who brown nose. At every commander's call, I see people receive awards, letters of appreciation, and decorations for less im 15 months than I have done in a week. This is affecting others who have noticed the same pattern. And yet somehow, no matter how much things supposedly improve, there is still allowable discrimination based on rank, regardless of ability or responsibility. Yet again, another complaint I have.

If you can't tell, I don't have a very high opinion of my experiences in the military. But I assure that this is not the general opinion. The general opinion is mixed. That's really all that can be said. Large groups of people put on a happy face for the base commander so he thinks there's high morale.



And no, I wasn't thinking someone actually was trying to justify the thought of using WMD. And I am glad we have them in stead of the "bad guys" as you put it. Despite the results of using any weapon, there is always the referral to the paradox about being prepared for war if peace is desired.

EAstree, non-combat citations are meaningless to any but those who do the shuffle required to get them. The military is about readiness for war. The changing nature of war calls for a changing military. There was great consternation surrounding the end of the horse, and its associated military occupations, as iconoclastic features of military life. The demise of the battleship was long denied, and the airplane was roundly resisted by "The Old School" right into WWII. Both the Army and the Navy were outraged that The Airforce became the predominant strategic Force-In-Being. Don't be a horse soldier.

Well, though my biggest complaint is not about the changing work structure, you made a great point. And I have no complaints about being war ready. But part of my concern with hiring contractors to do military work is the fact that now civilians are being placed in situations which, a few years ago, only military would have been allowed to go into.

About the citations, it's not so much what they mean but the fact that I have worked my tail off doing my job, managing literally millions of dollars of equipment, and doing what would not be expected of anyone until 2 or 3 ranks higher. The other people did such things as leading a tour that lasted 4 hours. It's not the meaning of the award but the fact that the person who earned it didn't do nearly as much as the person who didn't.

And you make a good point about the negative morale impact of brown-nosing, paper-shuffling, social club awards. However, they've always been the norm, complained of in the armies of Athens, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Peter the Great, Napoleon, Ulyses Grant, Douglas MacArthur, and Joseph Stalin, among just about all others.

Re civilian contractors, I call your attention to the fact what now are the Navy's Seabees were originally Civilian Construction Battalions, under the directorship of Naval Command.

The incredible railroad building feats, particularly as regards bridging, of the Civil War Union Army, were accomplished by civilian craftsmen under military command. Its nothing new.

That's all true (and a lot of ne w information for me -- should I write it down since I suck at history). How does it make you feel that civilians are im Baghdad? A couple of my contractor friends here almost took jobs there -- it pays well, but it's a duck and cover job.

My feeling re civilian contractors in Iraq, whether Baghdad or elsewhere, is that those best suited to a particular task are the ones best assigned to that task. In case you were unaware of it, I have a son over there, who happens to have what more or less now is an office job. Though he is military, he greatly appreciates the presence of civilians in his area of concern. A job which centers on operating construction equipment, admistrative or clerical function, or the like, but by organization entails no rifle time need not necessarily, or even most appropriately, be performed by military personnel. If the job is directly militaryin nature, the military should do it, of course; that's what its there for. If the job is not directly military, the military should seek and employ the most suitable non-military resources available to accomplish the job.

Well said.