McChrystal calls for a draft
General Stan McChrystal, according to Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy, called for a return of the draft;
“I think we ought to have a draft. I think if a nation goes to war, it shouldn’t be solely be represented by a professional force, because it gets to be unrepresentative of the population,” McChrystal said at a late-night event June 29 at the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival. “I think if a nation goes to war, every town, every city needs to be at risk. You make that decision and everybody has skin in the game.”
McChrystal admits that it would lead to a loss of professionalism in the ranks, but I guess because he’s a liberal deep inside (he voted for Obama, he says) the loss of a successful military is secondary to everyone’s feelings about war. Americans were largely against the surge in Iraq, and their opinions didn’t matter, because it happened anyway. Americans wanted the wars to end and they voted for Obama…the casualties since the “peace President” took office are 2/3s of the total US casualties in the nearly 11-year war. So what good would everyone having “skin in the game” do for our policies?
I wonder what the casualty count would be if the force was partly draftees. In Vietnam, draftees were 25% of the total force but they accounted for 30.4% of the combat deaths.
So, yeah, if the way everyone feels about our prospective wars is more important than the actual outcome, let’s start a draft.
Category: Military issues
Uhm…how about fuck to the no? I see along with gutting the force for about the umpteenth time following a major conflict, we have the collective desire to unlearn every hard learned lesson Vietnam taught us. I am shocked this is even coming up…but I’m not surprised, considering the source.
The left loves to pretend it wants to reinstate the draft. Can you imagine the howels of outrage when those long haired smelly fuckers are forced to get hair cuts and acutally take showers on a semi regular basis? Not going to happen. The population of Canada would double overnight. It’s a great talking point for them, but they have no real intention of even trying to implament it.
Jeebus, why does every flag think they got the right answer to EVERYTHING?
The General may have served with draftees, he may even have led them. If he doesn’t remember the shitbag societal rejects that plagued the ranks, the criminals who escaped county jail by enlisting and who thereby gained a new and steady stream of victims, then his memory is faded and his judgement suspect.
I retired in April after 37 years in the Navy. I wouldn’t want my “professional” Navy dumb-downed by being forced to feed, clothe, house, and train a dissaffected, unpatriotic malcontent who with the swift inhalation of a joint, could “opt out” of the draft.
Look at any OWS crowd; trying picturing that group at MEPS.
It ain’t pretty.
That would be f–king awsome. I can see and hear all the whining now….”I can’t get drafted, I have to get drunk and get laid…”
This is just weird. Coming from someone who talked smack about Obama and Biden, got burned by a hack in Rolling Stone and in the book “Operators”, and now heads up the White House initiative to hire Vets for Obama, and now this – huh?
Why not just promote the military more in higher education?
Not every great GENERAL — (whether THIS General is great, or not) —
is GEN George Washington, in political acumen .
But Rieckhoff the other day was saying how wonderful McCrystal was….
Wasn’t McChrystal fired by Obama?
Whoa, I thought McChrystal was a guy with some good ideas. This is most decidedly not one of them.
Jonn, your last line is so very, very true. We fight to win, not so people can get ribbons and feel good about themselves.
But why should I have to do tour(s) and you or your offspring, family, friends, etc. do not? Why should I get stop lossed and others of similar ages and backgrounds are chilling at the bar?
I do not think this is a good idea, per se, but it gets old always pulling the wagon.
Food for thought.
If I was in a position to eliminate government agencies, the SSS would be the first to go. What do we need this for. To invade China? Look at the patriotism that younger folks showed when 9/11 happened.
Who the hell wants to serve with people who don’t want to be there in the first place. The constant turnover and training is a tremendous expense.
@10
Because you signed up for it and the people who didn’t… didn’t?
Besides, would you really want some OWS type in your unit?
So the current force isn’t representative of the population, and this bothers some. So now, with typical liberal thought process, call for the government to fix this problem (namely by a draft.)
“I think if a nation goes to war, every town, every city needs to be at risk. You make that decision and everybody has skin in the game.” Sorta like Washington, D.C., New York City and all of it’s suburbs, and Shanksville, Pa., Stan?
Or did we miss something there, has every casualty since we went to war been from the same city, Stan, the same high school? I would hope that Rogin misquoted him, I’d hate to think McChrystal has really drank the Kool-Aid.
I hear you both, 10 and 11 and you are both on target. There is no substitute for training, cohesion, desire, brotherhood and motivation.
However, a tour(s) will burn a man out. Not to mention the divorce rates, family instability, social decline, etc.
I am currently a grad student in the world of academia in a somewhat liberal institution in the NW. And I am here to tell you, these folks here could care less. They treat those wars as if they are someone elses problem and concern.
While this may be true, it gets on my nerves. One of my classmates(23 yo) did not realize that we still had troops in Afghanistan. Really?
Maybe this kid could be an 0311 or 11B. Possibly, but I doubt it. It would teach him something.
I understand that I am new to this forum but just wish to share my experiences and honesty with you.
What Taliban Stan needs to do is shut the fuck up and go on his way. He has no right to run his suck after his ROE and theater directives got people killed. I don’t understand why this asshole isn’t serving time in Leavenworth
The problem with a professional standing army is that it is expensive and that expense must be justified the only way Congress knows how – – – with foreign wars.
Also, professional soldiers, being more detached and alienated from average citizens, would probably be more willing to open fire on their fellow American civilians.
For that reason, there was great objection and fear when the United States Military Academy was founded.
Also, for that same reason, at the insistence of the states, Amendment II was added to our divinely inspired Constitution of the United States of America barring the federal government from infringing on our individual unalienable right to keep and bear arms, thus insuring that this nation’s primary defense would rely on citizen militias.
Or, at least, that’s how it was SUPPOSED to work.
On the other hand, conscripts do represent all demographics of the population, and in theory, would likely be more loathe to obey orders to gun down their neighbors and kinfolk.
Unfortunately, though, there are yet other factors that further confuse and complicate the situation, such as the evidence of overwhelmingly abysmal ignorance and immorality so prevalent throughout contemporary society, plus, due to the hostility of stark racial polarization, and rejection of traditional Christian family values, we are a divided people, unable to unite.
We’re already on the eve of a total collapse of our national economy (How have we lasted this long?), which inevitably will lead to general anarchy, racial genocide, and civil war.
When it starts, I’m afraid we’re in for a bloody awful mess, far worse than anything I saw in Viet Nam.
I was a draftee, serving with other draftees.
Of course, the difference was that I wanted to be there, and the other guys didn’t.
(That’s a long story for another time – – – , and yes, it’s a bit unusual.)
Not an original thought for a retired GO. Maj Gen Smedly Butler said the same thing after he retired from active duty in the 1930’s. He wrote an essay “War is a Racket.”. It’s funny how retired GOs only become so wise and insightful after they have no skin in the game.
Oddly enough, when I joined years past, most of the current GO’s at the time had burned some skin as PL’s and CPT’s on the line.
CIB and Ranger Tab will get you to that GO position IF you have a career mindset.
It would depend on the nature of the draft, a real honest draft that didn’t give dipsh1ts like Dick Cheney 5 chances to opt out might create the outcome McChrystal is thinking about. But when the only people who end up actually serving after they register are those for whom college is not yet an option, well that’s not representative of the population either and frankly most folks don’t give 2 sh1ts about what happens to the sons and daughters of the lower economic classes any more than they pay lip service to you now, as long as someone else’s kids are dying most folks don’t much care about your service Green Thumb hits that pretty squarely in his post as well…
These are not my original words I am paraphrasing a bit, but when the sons of judges, congressmen, lawyers and doctors are dying at the same rate as the sons of plumbers, landscapers and steel workers then maybe you find a few more people paying attention when you place these people in harm’s way.
There is a danger that a society that allows itself to be protected by less than 2% of its’ population neither values the protection or the protectors very much, from that perspective I think I understand McChrystal’s point….also a society that has so few people serving has some difficulty managing the military appropriately, and our government is based on civilian oversight so a few more civilians with some understanding of the sacrifice and necessity of the service might be a positive.
I agree with this guy! We SHOULD have a draft. We can draft every single bright-idea-fairy, washed-up has been straight away, dress them in a speedo, strap a bomb to ’em, and point them at the enemy………
“Look at the patriotism that younger folks showed when 9/11 happened.”
Meh. There were isolated incidents of patriots responding to the call, but for the most part they sat home and played X-Box. Rewind two generations to Pearl Harbor and you’ll see a generation mobilized to fight.
In some ways 9/11 changed everything. But in a lot of ways, it changed nothing. A lot of people went on about their business as if nothing had happened.
I don’t think a draft would work in this day and age. There are too many people who can’t be whipped into military shape no matter how hard we try. I’m not just talking about physical conditioning either. Take some overweight, bisexual goth kid with “issues” and make a soldier out of him. I dare you.
Furthermore, I think anyone suggesting a draft should study the last draft we had during the Vietnam War. It was a shitshow. It also led to an Army infested with indiscipline, low morale, criminality, drug use, and fragging. And plenty of people ducked it, so the idea that we’re going to make all communities proportionally represented is a fallacy.
If they want to do a draft because we all should fight, then we all should have a vote if we go to war or not. Just my two cents. I love serving and have enjoyed every minute of my time with my family but I live being deployed and helping out people who really need it. Not these worthless d bags leeching off our welfare system!
Fuck McCrystal. I got caught up in the draft in 66,I will take my grandson to Canada before I will allow the government to use him as cannon fodder for some piece of shit country that has no value like they did me. No, FUCK NO!!!!
I don’t believe that we need or should have a draft. However, I do believe that the lack of skin in the game hurts our democracy and promotes the idea that we can execute war on the cheap. How about this idea? President George W. Bush telling everyone that their patriotic duty in this crisis will be to start planting victory gardens and that the country will begin rationing again. Encouraging the population to go out and finance a new car the week after September 11 just widened the gap between the Armed Services and the Nation they defend.
Interesting psychology:
When Clinton fired SACEUR GEN Wesley Clark, Clark became the Clinton’s biggest friend and catspaw.
When Obama fired GEN McChrystal, McChrystal is becoming Obama’s friend and useful proxy.
Must be the crushing of hubris. From overweening pride to abject subservience.
As for the expense of a draft: consider the cost of providing VA benefits, including cash, to a military filled with draftees. How much as the GI Bill cost us, the taxpayer, since WWII? VA Medical systems/personnel/programs? The costs extended to ten times today’s number of Americans, not to mention the cost of feeding, training, and equipping the force.
No – to have an affordable draftee military, Congress is beholden to our future to slash the military’s bennies to almost nothing. And, should they do so, we are only permitted to hope and pray that they don’t further erode our bennies.
The comparative cost argument for a draft is pure BS. The idea that America will invest or divest in war just because of a draft is also BS. Our history, and the history of the world with respect to a draftee army shows America (and every other country) is equally willing to engage in combat simply because a draft provides the bodies TO ABSORB LOSSES.
So – a draft historically guarantees astronomic casualty lists, regardless of the professionalism of the Brown-shoe Army of today and the future.
Of course, the Pentagon could change our contractual agreements, and leave us to pray they don’t alter it further.
I have 2 sons that are active duty, both 11b. I can name 10 local men who I watched grow up who enlisted as well. Not ONE did it for college money. In fact the majority gave up scholarships to enlist. One of my son’s best friends from the Army came down from Walter Reed a few weeks ago while my son was home on redeployment leave…..he lost his leg to an IED, he walked away from THREE baseball scholarship offers to join the military….btw, he is one test away from going back to his infantry unit. My own sons had college paid for and chose military instead……I get tired of people always saying that the military is for people without any options and it is a last resort. With 2 sons serving, the majority of their buddies have at least some college. Again, I don’t know of ONE who joined for school. In fact, my son is a Team Leader and just got a new soldier this week, fresh from Fort Benning..a 29 yr. old lawyer.
Wth all the multicultureism that has been put on the books as LAW there is no way the gummint can take just 18-30 year old white guys and draft them.
It will have to take ALL the people in the United States to the drafted, to keep it leagale. You would have to take all disabled people, old people, homeless persons, females, even the islams would have to be drafted, how would that work out for the gummint. All the other sexes and colors that are wanting to have pride, that are living in this country this gummint would even have to draft illigial invading alians to make it FAIR,(and as all libturds tell you every fucking time YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT FAIR), for everyone to be invloved in the draft. They would even have to draft me again, so for sure with out a doubt what ever war I was drafted for the United States WOULD LOSE IT. I helped lose nam for this country so why would I be able to win another war for this gummint.
How about mandatory service, similar to the Germans? After highschool, before college, everyone does nine months military service or two years civil service, then goes on their merry way to do college, get a job, or whatever. Instills some discipline, and civic values. I was in Germany the last ten years and saw the kids who just completed service driving around with their cars dressed up and celebrating their hitch being up. Not sure how that would work with a nation of 300 million versus 30 though. Still would prefer that to a draft. Sitting on BAF right now on my 5th deployment, and I see more contractors and civvies here than soldiers regardless. That’s how we are accomplishing the drawdown, by swapping soldiers for contractors. On another note, McCain was just here to have lunch with soldiers, never made the news. Hillary and Obama showed up here too. They were all over the news. What’s up with that?
@29:
No, I’m against mandatory service. If it’s mandatory, it’s not service.
“Not sure how that would work with a nation of 300 million versus 30 though.”
Germany has 82 million people. That’s about one fourth of the American population.
@28:
Wow, I almost cracked a smile at your lame-ass humor. Almost.
I think Switzerland and Israel probably have the best led, best trained, best organized, and best motivated citizen armies.
What do you think?
Is our population too handicapped by compulsory multiculturalism, political correctness, revisionist history, and racial division to be able to do that?
Have the masses become so ignorant and immoral that we can no longer trust each other?
@32 Agree with the Israel statement. There was an OPD last year led by Isreali Defense Minister at Fort Benning and he brought some impressive info with him regarding their defense forces. They have to be motivated just to stay alive though as they are constantly under threat of attack. They are also unencumbered by PC BS, and kill people who need killing, which is a much better policy than giving them driver’s licenses.
@30. Roger, point being there are significantly less folks.
I find it fantastically interesting that the only ones I hear calling for a draft, over the last 10 years, are democrats. Why is that? I would really like to know their motivation for it.
France used to have a conscript military, up until the year 2000, I believe. Their volunteer force was the French Foreign Legion which is non-French, except for the leadership.
Old Trooper, my perception is that many Democrats have used the call for a draft to highlight the political issue of rich vs. poor. The conventional wisdom in their circles goes that it is the poor that are bearing the burden of sacrifice and fighting in the Armed Services because the service provides a ticket out of poverty into the middle class. If there was a draft, the reasoning goes, there would be more shared sacrifice on the part of the rich and more of a vested interest by the rich to keep their sons and daughters out of harms way. Some of it is altruism and wishing for peace, some of it is genuine concern for your constituents if you represent a poor district. Most of it is just unvarnished politics and show which continues to distract from the real issues of “Why are we there?”, “Who should serve?” “What is service and how do we cultivate the relationship between those that choose to serve and those that do not?” and “How do we pay for it?”
@36: Good points, however, the narrative, when we did have the draft, was that the rich parents found ways to keep their kids out of the draft. So, that battle cry would come roaring back. Plus, the false accusation that poor black kids were disproportionately drafted and serving in front line combat units was another clarion call for the leftists to use. Even though the numbers didn’t back up their claims, it didn’t stop the propaganda from being used on the ignorant masses.
Personally, I would rather have someone next to me that wasn’t forced to be there. Plus, with a 2 year hitch in a draft, you are limited by time, in what jobs you want to put draftees in. Nuke school would be out, because they would just finish up school in time to ETS, so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that they are put in combat arms jobs, or other low tech jobs.
I’m working on a post that I hope to have up by tonight or tomorrow morning. As it stands now, it might be a multi-part endeavor. I will cover a little of this kind of thing in it.
@37: I agree that a draft would not work in today’s day and age. Outside of Shower/Laundry Specialist and a few other two to three week AITs, the professionalism and skills development that we expect from our Soldiers does not come in a two year hitch. As far as the accusations of racial disparity, I don’t know the whole story on that, but never let real facts get in the way of ANY politician’s demagoguery.
Yer missin’ the point, boys. You don’t have to pay the conscripts as much. Frees up money for other projects.
You think we can hand out $500,000 in foldin’ money to every widow in a real war?
@38: Yeppers
One advantage in our political system after WW2 was than 1 out of 10 had served the military in some capacity, with about 1 out of 100 serving currently few people have any understanding of what happens in the military. It is my belief that a society disconnected that far from a professionaly military is not a good thing for the society or it military…people who serve currently are more likely to have a parent or sibling or other relative who has also served. This is true certainly in my own family.
A long term divide between a warrior class and the people that warrior class are designed to serve benefits neither, and was certainly not how the founders envisioned the citizen/soldier.
Old Trooper, I look forward to your multi-part post, I truly enjoy reading everyone’s viewpoint on these topics, everyone here always give me much to consider…
@38 The contractors do all of those MOS’s now anyways. The only thing that would make sense is straight leg infantry. Everything else is either outsourced or AIT is too long. I guess that makes Greyhawks comment most relevant. Money talks. 82nd CAB runs a dfac on BAF with the tag line “One of the last Army run dfacs in the world”. When I did OIF 2 we washed our own clothes, then had contractors show up and do it. In Kosovo we had Army laundry service, all of that is contracted now. My job is being phased out, contractors are doing it, and the shitty thing is those contractors are prior one term enlistees. I actually had my soldier come teach a class as a contractor to me and my section, when I taught him everything two years previously. I asked him how much he got paid afterwards, and he said they started him at 68K. Who wouldn’t quit the Army for that? No BS, no PT, no grooming standards, he got fat as fuck and was happy as hell. Great kid, but I wish he had stayed in.
I don’t know about casualty levels of a draftee Army in our current conflicts..
But I could make a guess about “alleged war crimes” occurrences. They’d be WAY up. Forced service without a convincing purpose breeds bad attitudes. Bad attitudes breed poor discipline. Poor discipline results in war crimes.
If they did a draft, they’d be hard pressed to find enough civilians in good enough shape to serve. While I personally think military service for two years should be required of ALL able bodied American’s, this isn’t the way to go about it.
No. 42:
$$ (MONEY) is GOOD .
McChrissy seems to not know or not realize one of the worst things that came from including the shitbirds of the “prison or military.
Some years ago, someone figured out the worst of these lovelies were fragged by their own units and, to make things sit well with the O2 in charge, a BS story was concocted causing these miscreants to be cited for “heroic action against enemy forces” – for nothing more than being a total fuck-up, a psychopath, and posing a great danger to those in their unit that actually wanted to go home someday.
Missy Mac is a commie like his boss in a high place.
Having spoken during the 2008 primaries of the existential threat to the U. S. presented by radical Islam, Romney most recently opined in a debate ” a very few number of families are paying the price of freedom in America”.
It concerns me deeply that a man with not one, not two or three sons, but five sons of military age who chose not to serve the country during a time of urgent calling desires to be president. Five sons that, during the sustained engagements of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan chose not to serve on active duty or in in Reserves – not even in the National Guard. Five sons, not a one. Yet, while he is unable to call those gathered around his dinner table to service of their country, he aspires to lead as commander-in-chief those who do sacrifice.
No. 22:
Two-thirds of WWII military were drafted — they did NOT enlist, as possibly you suggest.
Two-thirds of Vietnam War volunteered — the exact opposite of WWII.
“. . . during the 1940s, some fifteen million men were inducted into the armed forces. Of those only 33 percent enlisted; 67 percent were drafted. Initially set up to bring in men twenty-one to thirty-four, the draft age had to be lowered to eighteen because there were not enough volunteers.”
—
“About one-third of Vietnam-era veterans entered the military through the draft, far lower than the 67 percent drafted in World War II. And once drafted and inducted, many men volunteered for the Airborne, Special Forces, or other duty likely to send them to Vietnam.”
– “STOLEN VALOR,” by B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, 1998, p. 51, 52 .
@47: Did any of Bill Clinton’s kids serve? No. Did FDR’s kids serve? Did LBJ’s? Ronald Reagan’s? Truman’s? Kennedy’s? Nixon’s? Woodrow Wilson’s? How about Obama’s? Should those that don’t have kids of age to serve be disqualified from being CinC? Should it be a requirement that to run for President that you have to have kids of age to serve and that at least one of them does? If that’s the case, then we should be talking about President McCain right now, instead of Obama.
When you set the standard like that, it makes it awfully hard to find a Presidential candidate to meet the requirement.
FDR’s son was a Captain who saw combat with the Marines in the Pacific. Kennedy, Clinton and Obama’s children were/are literally children in the White House. Truman and Nixon’s daughters were college age, Johnson’s daughters a little younger. Reagan’s two sons were old enough to have served when he assumed office. Neither did. Ford’s sons went to college as Vietnam was beginning to wane.
Would I like the CinC to be a veteran? Absolutely. Do I think it’s any easier for someone like President Obama to issue an order that he knows will result in casualties or write a letter to a Gold Star Mother or Wife than someone like George H.W. Bush? I do not. This issue is about society at large, not just about whoever happens to occupy the Oval Office.