an old gravel agitator
I hear ya Lima Charlie. Thank you for your service.
I am in favor of an all volunteer army when it is sufficient to address our defense needs. The last draft was halted in 1973. The last draftee was discharged the week of Thanksgiving 75. That was not the first time we stopped the draft. So far it has been the last time we restarted the draft.
The draft is needed when the volunteers are insufficient. We cranked up the draft and won WWI and WWII with draftees.
The previous and on-going attempts to fill our ranks with large financial incentives have not only failed to increase our military strength, they have not maintained what little we had.
That is problem of the highest magnitude.
In September 2001 we had 1,385,000 under arms. That was the total for Army, Navy, USAF and USMC.
Today we have only 1,375,000 (10K less) and at least 10,000 of them are being involuntarily held on active duty beyond their scheduled separation date. We have only 49,000 infantrymen in the army
This is a bare bones all volunteer force for the US, included are a base-line staff of hospital and field medical personnel; personnel to man the military school and training systems; a certain number of logisticians, ammo, weapons and vehicle maintenance folks; depot level storage and maintenance; military finance personnel; base support personnel; planning staffs; military police; a disaster relief force; sailors for ships; pilots and air base/aircraft maintenance crews; the special weapons folks; an enlarged JAG; and etc.
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We have about 175,000 forward deployed in Iraq and Afghan. But that is only part of the picture. We have another large number supporting the war from Kuwait, Qatar, AFRICOM, Djibouti, Georgia, Germany, several Stans, Turkey, the Mediterranean and Arabian Seas and the Indian Ocean. Some bombing missions originate and terminate here in CONUS. We have other missions and operations underway in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, other areas of the Pacific, South America, etc.
The all volunteer army concept still sounds good, but it has failed us when we needed it most. The solution in reserve is the draft.
We need about a double in military strength to maintain the OPTEMPO begun on 9/11, and to create an adequate war and other needs reserve that can satisfy our military requirements both doctrinally and practically.
That would be 2.8 million from a population base of 300 million.
In contrast, we needed 8 million in uniform from a population base of 200 million to prevail in WWII. |
