Ricks: Draft our kids
So, in the New York Times, Tom Ricks echoes Stan McCrystal’s call to bring back the draft. Ricks is two days younger than me, but our life experiences are quite different, apparently, because his vision of a draft is decidedly not to support our warfighting capability, and contrary to McCrystal’s plan to have every American community have “skin in the game” in the next war, Rick’s sees it as a jobs program and to provide cheap labor – an Army of janitors;
These conscripts would not be deployed but could perform tasks currently outsourced at great cost to the Pentagon: paperwork, painting barracks, mowing lawns, driving generals around, and generally doing lower-skills tasks so professional soldiers don’t have to. If they want to stay, they could move into the professional force and receive weapons training, higher pay and better benefits.
Those who don’t want to serve in the army could perform civilian national service for a slightly longer period and equally low pay — teaching in low-income areas, cleaning parks, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, or aiding the elderly. After two years, they would receive similar benefits like tuition aid.
And libertarians who object to a draft could opt out. Those who declined to help Uncle Sam would in return pledge to ask nothing from him — no Medicare, no subsidized college loans and no mortgage guarantees. Those who want minimal government can have it.
Then, it’s not really a draft is it? We already have a cheap workforce tending to lawns, building maintenance, and paperwork – that’s why the buildings at Walter Reed were criticized by the Washington Post five years ago – a cheap workforce. When their draft service came around, there’d be tons of teen aged libertarians who don’t care about whether they’d get Medicare in 50 years or not – that’s why Obama has to force them to buy health insurance.
And if they’re not going to deploy, where’s McCrystal’s “skin in the game”? If your child has been drafted and you can be reasonably sure that they won’t deploy, why would you be invested in a decision to go to war?
I think Ricks just thinks that sending millions of high schoolers to basic training would teach them to pull their pants up over their underwear instead of Ricks and the rest of the liberals summoning the testicular fortitude to tell them to hike up their drawers. Or something.
Obviously, the liberals, like Ricks, don’t have any idea how much time would be invested in shepherding people who don’t want to be in the Army. It’s hard enough with volunteers.
Having read some of the discussions on Facebook of the Ricks’ piece, I’ve noticed that the only supporters of the proposal are people who wouldn’t be drafted anyway.
Category: Military issues
Personally, I’ve always felt that anyone who went to college should first have to spend either two years in the military or four years in the work force. That way when the professors started spouting all that liberal crap they’d have some kind of life experience to resist it and tell him to shut up and teach.
What? I could opt out of big government? Does that mean I don’t have to pay into medicare and social security? I’m interested now!
OT…Not a chance. You just would not be able to access it. But they would use you as a statistic as to those not able to get it so they could pass a law that would allow you to get it.
Hold it….ya mean they would be available to shine the pro’s shoes, wax the barracks floors! Holy crap each pro could have their own batman! Shades of the empire!!!!!!
I LOVE the fact that he lumps public school teaching and rebuilding crumbling infrastructure in with mowing lawns and cleaning up parks. If you think the government is wasting money now by contracting out painting barracks, you ain’t seen nothin til you’ve seen what the AFT says you’re going to have to pay your new non-military draftees.
Andy….Yep…they will make way more than the pro’s…and be able to unionize too!
This is something the Europeans have been doing for a long time, and most of them are now professionalizing their forces and backing away from the conscription model. There’s a reason for this. The conscription model’s cost/benefit analyses have shown over and over again that it’s just not worth it.
After reading the Op-Ed, is it possible that the author is making the point of how ridiculous the idea is by showing the absurdities in support of the argument. Could his proposal to house the draftees in VA hospitals because they might have space be a giveaway?
We already have this in the military, it’s called a working party. S-4 up!
Why not bring back programs like the CCC?
@1. Right on. There is a huge difference between teaching and indoctrination.
They are trying to leverage the idea that working in a government capacity is the same as military service.
That way some weasel how has never chewed dirt or picked sand out of his ass can say he served too.
There used to be rumblings about the Pease Corps getting the same benefits as the military. In thier minds they are the other side of the coin….well….in one sense I agree with McCrystal. Put your ass on the line for something.
Where I don’t agree is a draft. That will only downgrade the professional force. Hell the way things are going in Europe we will be the only western power with a military of any note. Setting up a draft will only weaken it.
This could be a setup for FULL DICTATORSHIP — every tyranny in history FORCES men into its armies, or into gov’t labor — if you can’t choose your work, you are a slave.
I have some pertinent comments in Thread 30660 .
Not entirely true, DR_BRETT. Imperial Rome was indeed a tyranny. However, the Imperial Roman Army was in general a voluntary, professional force for well over 300 years – from approx 30BC to approx 284AD. Conscription for Roman Legions was limited to periods of emergency throughout this period. Staffing for Roman auxillia (regular units staffed by non-Roman citizens) was also largely voluntary; however, some amount regular conscription was used to staff auxillia until approx 100AD. Even auxillia conscription was apparently discontinued around that time.
Conscription has hardly been unique to dictatorships. I’m pretty sure every republic or democracy has practiced it at one point or another.
Thanks for the correction, regarding Roman History.
Full dictatorship’s final step — nail in the coffin — is censorship, which only gov’t can perform. I have said the USA is a mob-rule dictatorship, since AUG 2008; no, probably not a FULL dictatorship, but compared to America’s Nineteenth Century most of The Twentieth and The Twenty-First is ANTI-FREEDOM .
America — except for the War Between The States, when $$ could substitute for military enrollment — was a volunteer military until Woodrow Wilson. Wilson jailed men who merely disagreed about going to war.
I recently use Wikipedia for general history, ONLY AFTER years of reading and consulting books and other printed matter. Wikipedia’s article (search Wiki for “WOODROW WILSON”) includes this:
“An intellectual with very high writing standards, . . .” —
but with VERY LOW Constitutional Standards, I say.
Those writing standards are not named, and I dispute that any old College Professor and President — necessarily is a real intellectual, in tune with man and the rest of reality .
I’m wondering if, when the inevitable fiscal & societal collapse hits, we’ll see a Heinleinian representative government: only veterans would hold the franchise. The military would represent one of the few pools of social order in a sea of lawlessness.
Not sure I’d want to see as spartan/draconian a military as what Heinlein discussed, but it certainly would weed out those who REALLY wanted to contribute to society as opposed to those that just signed up and thought it’d be a cakewalk for two years.
How about a crazy idea – why not just increase benefits and pay for being in the military?
And how about tax incentives to corporations who military personnel (active duty and veterans) discounted goods and services (let’s say 25% discount required and none of this 4th of July only holiday crap – all the time).
Need “give” after who above … ‘lil too quick on the trigger
Too little, too late. I agree with the concept of a draft during war time, but this is a conversation that should have occurred ten years ago.
No. 16 Poohbah, Lord High (etc.):
Yes I took your name in vain, sort of —
Good to see you here again .
No. 18:
I’ve been urging MORE $$ TO THE TROOPS — for many, many years .
I’d prefer that it stays volunteer only, the politicians influence already controls too much of the military. Imagine if everybody had “skin in the game”.
It’s always interesting when people casually throw out reinstating the draft (especially if they know it won’t affect them), and the idea of drafting for cheap labor definitely misses the mark. The other thing everyone always forgets is that about three quarters of our youth, ages 17-24, aren’t qualified to serve, mainly because they’re so physically unfit. I would argue there is something to be said for America having more “skin in the game.” It was totally obvious to me when I was in from 2005-2009 that whenever I returned from a deployment, that I had just come back from a war that no one back home was even thinking about. Not sure if a draft is the way to fix that, but the idea of breaking people out of this bubble we’ve created is something that certainly merits discussion.
First, I’m a liberal. I believe in individual liberties and the open operation of a representative governernment.
The restoration of the draft is a Progressive – not liberal at all – ideal and anyone that seriously considers the reinstatement of the draft in any form is simply aiding and abetting the Progressives.
Look, the reason the Progs -and we should insist on geting the terminology correct – fantasise about bringing back the draft is that the view it as a way of destroying the Military (as if they aren’t already doing enough in that regard) by forcing the same shitbags who would never voluntarily enlist into the service, and as away of creating the same sort of social unrest they they fondly remember from the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. The Progs also view the draft as something imposed by Richard Nixon, mostly becasue Progresives tend to be rather shallow thinkers with selctive consciousnes. In fact, virtually every period of mandatory military service in U.S. history has been initiated by a Progressive administration – Lincoln in 1863, Wilson in 1917, Roosevelt in 1940 (BEFORE Pearl Harbor), and Truman and Kennedy during the Korean and Vietnam wars respectively. Nixon campaigned on ending the Vietnam War and ending the draft.
There is absolutely no reason for a draft. None. And until we insist that ever single illegal alien of military age in the country is required to register for selective service, mandatory selective service should be halted as well. Don’t fall into the intellectually lazy habit of thinking mandatory national service in anything short of an existential national emergency is somehow going to foster patriotism, love of country, respect for one’s society, or anything else. It can and only breed sloth, waste, resentment and turmoil. Those who love their country and respect their culture will serve it regardless. Those who don’t – and folks, that’s going to be a pretty high percentage – will always shirk. Nothing about the draft merits consideration.
This plan sounds rather fascist. Allowing for the expanded conscientous observer status seems to defeat one of the ulterior motives many Leftists have for promoting the new draft i.e. to hold everyone’s kids as hostage to prevent any new declarations of war & forcing the US to preemptively surrender to any & all strategic threats.
Yeah, what rik said in #25.
Well, hell. While they’re talking about resurrecting the draft, why don’t they also revive “McNamara’s 100,000” plan?
Since they’re talking about using the military for purposes other than killing people and breaking things, they oughta consider all of the alternatives.
I think that idiot would be pretty shocked to see what a typical day in the Infantry is like.
[…] sees it as a jobs program and to provide cheap labor – an Army of janitors;” –Ricks: Draft our kids: This Ain’t Hell. “McChrystal admits that it would lead to a loss of professionalism […]