Draft? No Thank You!
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I would like to take a moment to respond to Mr. Uehling’s comments on my previous blog, “My Generation at War,” because he brings up some very good concerns shared by many. First, I consider it an honor that he, as a fellow veteran, took his time to share his reactions on such important topics that should be discussed and debated between his generation and mine in order to determine the lessons learned to pass on to future generations.
I could not agree more with Mr. Uehling’s comments about the quality of military we have now because we are a completely volunteer force. Deployments are hard for every one of us in the military no matter what your job is, but what makes the time away from home a little easier is knowing that I signed up for it, with free will, and so did all my comrades. I do not want to be sent on a mission where the people sitting next to me are only there because the government pulled them out of their lives, gave them a gun and some training and said “go fight.”
Mr. Uehling is also correct to say that without a draft, the armed conflicts in which our nation is engaged become something that is only fought by the military and not the nation as a whole. Times certainly have changed. I grew up listening to stories from my grandfathers--one served in the Pacific campaign of WWII as an Army Artillery Sergeant and the other as a crane operator in the General Motors plant in Trenton, N.J., pulling war assets off the assembly lines to be sent to those in combat. The pride they felt in serving their nation was evident.
That war was fought by one generation and one nation, and was much different from today’s War on Terror with the distinct separation of responsibilities and shared risk between the U.S. military and U.S. civilians. I am fine with that. Some members of the U.S. military may disagree with me, but there are fundamentals involved that need to be considered.
What does the “Land of the Free” actually mean? Every American citizen has a responsibility to make this country better, but it should be their right to determine how they will go about it. We do not need a draft to make the nation fight as one. We do not need to spread the risk the military takes across the whole population--and all Americans do not need to fight. One reason why our military budget is so big is so we can have the best trained military possible with the best technology to get the mission accomplished. And with our strong military and unrivaled technology, we can remain a smaller force in numbers and preserve the freedoms of the American citizen. This includes allowing them to choose for themselves how they will serve their country. If their choice is to go to work and help pay for our government’s decisions then so be it. I am proud to play a small part so this nation can continue to offer that freedom.
If a draft were enacted, who will pay for it? The costs to train and outfit a member of the armed forces are steep. The tab to deploy those individuals can be even higher. The United States already has the largest military budget in the world. What would the budget have to be to train and employ an even larger drafted force? Would the cost be worth possibly degrading the effectiveness of a smaller volunteer force just to share the risk amongst the American people? A draft will only add to the national debt and diminish the taxpayers’ return on investment. As it stands now, the national debt and how we are going to pay for it is going to be a major concern for my generation and those to follow. Let’s not unnecessarily add to our burden.
Mr. Uehling said, “We are starting to engage in armed conflict that drags on for many years and perhaps decades....and the people who fight in those wars and who risk their lives in harm's way are bearing a disproportionate amount of the national risk....and that is simply not fair in my view.” Yes, the War on Terror has been going on for many years and will probably continue for many more. And, yes, the brunt of the hardships fall on the military and their families. But that is still not a good reason for the draft. To be blunt, what in life is fair? We in the military all freely raised our right hands knowing that someday we could be put in harm’s way. A choice we were free to make.
As for the length of the war, that is up to our leaders in government to decide on the nation’s objectives and how we will pursue them. The responsibility all Americans need to bear is to ensure we have the right people in the positions that represent the needs of our nation and the freedoms we desire.
And we will proudly do the business of our nation.
(Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sharay Bennett; U.S. Navy recruits being sworn in before the second quarter of the 109th Army-Navy college football game, 2008)
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Comments
I find that Mr. Persiani's
I find that Mr. Persiani's rebuttal I made in disagreement with an all volunteer military was not responsive to the points I made, and hence less than persuasive. I pointed out that it was not fair to send the same volunteers repeatedly to what appears to be a never ending war. Mr. Persiani's response with the rhetorical question "What in life is fair?" borders on being flippant and certainly not responsive to my point. The answer is that many things in life are fair, and when situations are found to be unfair, society has an obligation to make efforts to make them as fair as possible. If we had a situation where some people were adequately protected by the police and some were not, I hardly think any civic minded person would shrug that off with the flippant question, "What in life is fair?" No, we would take appropriate steps to provide as even amount of police protection as was administratively possible.
Mr. Persiani's point that having a draft would cost more than not having a draft seems to falsely suggest that every eligible person would be drafted. There is no reason whatsoever why having a draft would change the number of personnel in the military. It would only change to some degree who served...not the number. Those drafted would be picked by lottery and the number picked would be based on the military's personnel needs at any given time as authorized by Congress. While I would advocate having a larger standing military force because our country's military obligations are much larger than the personnel we have to fulfill those obligations, that is whole new subject.
To saddle going into harm's way to only volunteers only raises the rhetorical question of "what would happen if those patriotic volunteers decided that they were fed up with being taken advantage of by the vast majority of non-volunteers, and they decided not to volunteer anymore?" And this question would be aggravated by the fact that almost all of those who decided to send those volunteers into harm's way had never served in uniform themselves...by that I mean both those in the executive and legislative branches of our government.
I would hope that the issues that I have raised here might be more directly addressed should there be a rebuttal than they were previously.
"My Generation at War"
First I would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Persiani for his very courteous response to my reactions to his blog article entitled “My Generation at War” even though he found little in what I had to say with which he agreed.
While he reflected quite positively as well as accurately about the positive attitudes during World War II which very much included a draft and ended in unequivocal defeat for our very formidable and tyrannical enemies, somehow he claims that this war is different without giving relevant and convincing reasons for those differences. He alludes to the “distinct separation of responsibilities and shared risk between U. S. military and U. S. Civilians” as if that were to justify his position against implementation of a draft.
Before going on I would also comment on what appears to me to be a generational bias that each of us may have in advocating our positions on whether or not a draft is appropriate today. I am 70 year old and can remember quite vividly the fear and anxiety that prevailed in our country from my age of as young as three years old 1942 until the war’s conclusion at age six in 1945. We all knew our very survival was at stake and virtually everyone pitched in in all walks of life. I remember well the rationing of food, fuel and anything made of metal. And I even remember the ”victory gardens” and the black outs when shades had to be drawn no one could show lights on where they lived. There was a national unity that I have not yet seen equaled….since as I was 6 years old.
My generation grew up in a time when parents’ authority was not questioned by their offspring. What children wanted was not as much of a concern as what parents felt was good for them….and children accepted the authority of their parents as being wiser and having their long term best interests. When given instructions children seldom asked why, and when they did, it was not uncommon to be told “do it simply because I said so!” In those times families ate together, did things as a family unit and were relatively close knit wherein members looked out for one another. When a small child flagrantly rebelled against parental authority, typically a spanking of their bottom with the flat of the hand was the response. Today families often do not eat together and are more a collection of self interested individuals than a close family unit.
If I had to put a date on it, I would say that most of this changed around 1960. It started to be that children were rarely if ever told that they could not get whatever they wanted (within reason) and great efforts were made to find out just what each child wanted. Spankings for any reason were simply not acceptable, and children were brought up thinking that whatever they wanted was something that they should have…and not to have it was an affront to their legitimate freedom.
Which brings me back to Mr. Persiani’s question, “What does the ‘Land of the Free’ actually mean?” He states that every citizen has a responsibility to make this country better. But then he goes on to say that “it should be their right to determine how they go about it”. My reaction to that is that would be just swell if everyone were equally responsible. But my 70 years of experience has taught me quite well that everyone is simply not equally responsible and that there are large numbers of our citizens who, using the mantle of invoking their freedom, are consistently willing to “hold the coats” of other citizens who continually risk their lives fighting in behalf of everyone….all the while those “who are holding the coats” of the fighters do virtually nothing productive to make this country better.
Mr. Persiani quite correctly reflects that our huge military budget has allowed our country to have the most sophisticated and technologically advanced military known to man, allowing us to have a significantly smaller number of personnel in uniform. That is true when dealing with limited objectives. What it is inadequate in addressing is our current dilemma wherein using a volunteer military force in fighting wars against worldwide Islamic radicals, the same people keep going back into harm’s way for well over a decade with no end in sight. My previous comment was that this was unfairly taking advantage of the patriotism of a relative few….and Mr. Persiani just seems OK with that simply because they volunteered. At what point would an objective person consider those patriotic volunteers simply to be suckers? At what point will those objective people be the volunteers themselves? Right now we are in a recession and there seem to be plenty of volunteers. But there seems to be no end in sight for our involvement in military conflict. What would Mr. Persiani’s feelings be about this subject if all of a sudden we still had military conflict and the volunteers essentially said “enough, I’m tired of pulling the wagon….let someone else do it.” Should we wait until it gets to that, or simply recognize the unfairness of what is happening now and require that the load be more equitably shared.
We don’t make the unpleasant task of paying income tax be voluntary, yet it too impacts on everyone’s freedom who pays it. Why should risking one’s life for one’s country be different?
Mr. Persiani states that having a draft would be expensive. Yes, it certainly would. National defense is expensive and in pursuing it properly we should not try to get away with it on the cheap. However, the additional expense in training draftees who would not make the military a career would not be a total waste after they left the service. The experience of draftees after service termination has in the past been an economic asset to our country, better preparing otherwise unskilled labor to become more productive in the labor force.
Mr. Persiani seems to slough off the unfairness that I have described as being acceptable; chalking it off to just one more thing in life that we have to put up with at is unfair. Clearly, I disagree. It is unfair and we do not have to put up with it. It is time that all citizens are required to accept their responsibilities as citizens and not be allowed to freeload on the patriotism of others.