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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (12527)	12/4/2001 4:52:00 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

That poses an interesting question: would women be drafted? This is loaded with political and legal issues. Maybe they'll just adjust military pay and benefits to achieve recruitment goals. snowshoe, i do not think women should be drafted...however they should continue to be allowed to voluntarily enlist. the draft is certainly loaded with political issues...i agree there. but i do not recall anyone ever suggesting it is illegal. btw the basic mechanisms to reinstate the draft are in place...a bit of the defense budget every year is earmarked for that purpose. i suppose if unemployment gets high enough, military pay may look more appealing. the problem with raising recruit pay as an enticement is that to be remotely fair about it...the raise must extend all the way up the ranks...this is expensive. if we have to rapidly expand our forces, i doubt pay will do it. we have around 2+ million under arms right now...north korea alone has seven million. i do not believe we can get ourselves up to strength to tackle that monster without a draft. another argument against trying to buy an army is American soldiers do not consider money a good reason to die. love is and has always been the best motivator for Americans going into battle. this can be projected as love of family or love of the men in a unit. our combat troops become very close during training...if deployed together as a unit (vs individual replacements), they will more willingly die to protect each other. i served half of my career in the draft army and half after the draft was abolished in 72. i believe the draft army more closely resembled our culture, and it was much cheaper. a private's pay was $78 per month. the following imo is really important...during the draft, every family had the potential to contribute a member to the armed forces so everyone was interested in troop morale, equipment and training. a major duty of every congressmen and senator was to look out for the servicemen and women from his district. every civilian knew soldiers were broke...so they looked out for them. in the 1950s and 60s, a soldier in uniform could hitchhike anywhere at anytime and be assured of getting quick rides whenever he stuck out his thumb. picking up the tab for a soldier having a sandwich or a coffee was common. servicemen always traveled in uniform and found respect and friendliness everywhere. everybody loved the troops. every family had a former serviceman, a member on active duty or a kid getting close to draft age. many had all three. it was called universal service...every family had a stake in the defense of America. we all hear freedom is not free. as a combat veteran, i can tell you the real price of freedom cannot be measured in dollars. the dollars will buy the guns and ammo...but you will find it difficult at best and more likely impossible to field a large effective American army based on a pay scale motivator. Americans will not die for a buck...but they will willingly go into battle and die for love. unclewest