The professionalism, pride and effectiveness of the armed services today is directly related to three things.
1. It's voluntary. Young people enlist motivated to serve.
2. Aggressive drug testing.
3. Leadership.
The draft is used to fill voids the volunteers don't.
Let's look at your service, the Navy.
In September, 1992 the Navy had 534,062 volunteers.
In September 2001 the Navy had 377,810 volunteers.
Today that number is 322,890.
There is a message in those numbers.
The army is 100,000 below 1992 strength. 10,000 more if you subtract those being involuntarily retained on active duty past their discharge date.
The dope smoking unmotivated armies of the past are gone, hopefully forever. All we need to do is provide the right kind of incentive for young people, such as the ability to go to college and earn a decent paycheck while serving.
Then why do we need aggressive drug testing? Why are we recruiting men with drug convictions?
Why are we offering initial enlistees the college fund and a $40,000 enlistment bonus?
Why are reenlistment bonuses as high as $150,000?
If these incentives are effective for our young people, why are we recruiting, enlisting and sending 42 year old men to basic training. The draft never took men even close to that old. The average draftee was 1/2 that age.
Why have we increased to almost 15% the number of new recruits who required waivers for felony convictions, drug use or moral turpitude? These men would not be eligible under draft rules.
Why are we now recruiting more high school dropouts than we did during the draft?
Why does the percent of new enlistees without a HS diploma now exceed the Vietnam era?
Why are we enlisting men today with GT scores below draft standards?
Why is recruiting command experimenting with establishing high schools in old grocery stores?
Why are contractors being paid up to $350,000 annually (not including corporate overhead) to do jobs soldiers once did?
These are not new experiments. Read about the failure of McNamara's Project 100000.
If you want to know about the army we are building today for tomorrow, talk to my brother. He is a patriotic and heroic, career infantryman who is now the First Sergeant of a basic training company.
Billy bleeds OD green blood. Now he can't wait to retire next year. He does not want to go back to a combat zone with the men he is being provided to train today.
Billy is not alone. Tell us why West Point graduates serving at infantry company level are requesting discharge at the highest rate in our history. What do they see in the volunteer army?
The all-volunteer military works, what didn't work was the draft. When we had the draft, leadership tossed bodies over the side at the drop of a hat. Thousands died needlessly, because generals thought they had an unlimited supply of people. If the same media scrutiny were applied during WW2 that applies today, the memory of military competence would be completely different.
There is nothing wrong with a small all-professional force. We have always reverted to that in peacetime. We use the draft to win wars.
The draft is the reason you still speak English.
America won WWI and WWII with draftees.
America has not won a war since the draft was halted in 73.
We are winning this war with an all-volunteer force.
The GWOT has been on-going for 6 and 1/2 years. List the wins and explain their significance.
Tell us why 4 GIs were killed in Baghdad on Easter Sunday. Tell us why, after 5 years, we cannot secure the Green Zone.
Help me understand. Read Petraeus' latest press releases...explain where and what he describes as his winning strategy. Just a couple of weeks ago, Petraeus announced he is feeling his way. What kind of command strategy is that?
Explain why we duplicated the the most egregious mistake (we made in Nam) and supported and helped conduct national elections before regional...thereby enabling the creation of a weak, a corrupt and an ineffective national leadership structure.
let's talk about surges. Tell us why the Taliban are surging today in the highest strength ever in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
I have the utmost respect for those who wear the uniform.
And I know our armed forces are the ultimate reality show. We need to be real with our evaluations and interpretations.
I believe in our armed forces.
I believe they are understrength.
I do not believe we have won anything that can endure without our presence.
In many respects our armed forces and government remain stuck on stupid. Major wars are won with a top down pyramid. If using conventional forces, insurgencies can be defeated with a massive pyramidal structure. By July we will have reduced our bottom footprint to 20% of what is needed to win according to our own tactical manuals. Think about this. We have a mere 130,000 military in Iraq. A small percentage of them are engaged in combat operations. A million more stand over them. Above all of them we have a 700,000 employee DOD. We are fighting with an upside down pyramid. Our few fighting men are supporting a huge pyramid above them. It should be the reverse.
Let's look at leadership. USCENTCOM is responsible for the Mideast and Horn of Africa (at least 25 countries). After 6 and 1/2 years of war, how does CENTCOM explain the failure to position their command headquarters in the war zone?
After 5 years, Petraeus remains afraid of a significant force drawdown. History tells us that COIN and FID require the backing of a strong and respected govt to succeed. Does Iraq have that?
If the Iraqi armed forces have achieved the level of competence being reported to us, Why is Prime Minister Maliki personally directing a battle in Basra that began today?
By any standard the actual conflict itself remains a small war. That is limiting us. We won't use our strategic weapons in small wars. The small war tactic with a high success rate is a combo of COIN and Foreign Internal Defense. Our conventional military desperately wants to reduce our footprint, but they remain inept at employing our best COIN and FID force. I give Petraeus credit for trying to improve our capabilities in this regard, but our tactical literature indicates we failed to be able to provide him and previous commanders the forces he needed and needs to prevail using current tactics. As Petraeus said, he wanted more; he thought he needed more; there were no more.
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