Mandatory military service in the U.S.?

[Monk]

Originally posted by john9001
""mandatory Federal Service""...cool , i volunteer to be a senator or at least a GS15

Na......sorry, don't want to fight the War, got to take care of those that did.

[fdiron]

Brighter? More motivated? Draftees? You're talking out yer arse FdIron, the quality of military people rose dramatically once we abolished the draft.

Please don't go insane.  During the Vietnam War, over half of the people drafted by the U.S. were able to get out serving by some means.  Basically what this means is that college students (who were deferred anyways) and people intelligent enough to fool the draft boards did not have to serve.  This left two types of people (1) People who did not object to serving, and (2) those too dumb to be able to get out of serving.  By 1970 criminals could serve in the military instead of going to prison.

However, if military service were required of everyone, like Israel has, it would improve the quality of soldier.  I am not for that though.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Elfenwolf
You guys think there's growing opposition to an Iraq war now? Start a draft and let us fight over there for a couple of years and THEN see what the American public thinks about having the body bags of draftees flying home every day.
 

Good. Maybe they'll get some sense and stop listening to the talking heads that tell us what a threat Hussein is.

[miko2d]

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
Good. Maybe they'll get some sense and stop listening to the talking heads that tell us what a threat Hussein is.

 Exactly. Because if we piss off most of the world (for best reasons, of course) while letting our strength crumble due to "divercity", "multiculturalism", "feminism", socialism and the whole slew of other "-isms", those guys will come knocking on our door and we will have no choice but to introduce draft.

 miko

[hardcase]

Reinstitute the draft? LOL....AuuuuuggghhhhhhLOL! Draft age children can vote in Federal Elections.

Dying in political war is stupid.

I was drafted in '66 No one will support it now. LOL!

HC

[Pongo]

Draft only works when there is sufficient external threat to motivate the general population, or a police state to enforce it.
Neither were present in the 60s nor at the current time in the US.

[KG45]

couple other observations:

1. it would be enormously expensive gov't program.

2. WTF are all these soldiers supposed to do?

[john9001]

liberals love to talk about "body bags", in WW2 there were so many dead they didn't ship them home in "body bags' , they buried them over there, i think some liberal invented body bags

[VAQ]

Originally posted by 2Slow
Hmmm...how about mandatory Federal Service?  If you want the franchise, then you must demonstrate social responsibility.  No Federal Service, no vote, no political office.  No one would be turned away for any reason.  If you are quadraplegic, then the Federal Service Administration must find something usefull you can do for two years.

"Starship Troopers" Robert A. Heinlein, 1959

One of my favorite books by my favorite SF author.

He was called a "fascist" and a "militarist" for this.

(TANSTAAFL- "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" R.A.H 1966)

[hardcase]

Ever notice those that expouse Mandatory Federal Service, never include themselves in this idea. It is always to an inexperienced teenager that is expected to do this. The reason the army did not draft anyone over the age of 26 during 'Nam was they found that when someone got that old you couldn;t fool them into doing stuff. They would not die for their country without asking why.


You need a viable threat to motivate anyone. The Bush War is not sufficient...Saddam can only kill his neighbors, none of which we like,except Isreal. Isreal will nuke him immediately. Since he cant kill us, ,lets send 100k kids so that he has a good target when his back is to the wall and we are sure he will use stuff. That way I guess Bush can be sure whether he has WMD or not. High price to pay to find out. Let him die, we can wait.

hc

[Elfenwolf]

I can't begin to tell all of you just how relieved I am that foreign policy isn't formed on these bbs.

The general consensus is that we not only invade Iraq but we reinstate the draft and send draftees in to do the "less technical jobs." Translate: Do the actual fighting.

Oh, and who was asking about the number of draftees killed in Viet Nam? I believe it was 30%, or between fifteen and eighteen thousand boys. Now out of the other 70% killed over there I wonder how many of them enlisted to get a better school than a draftee might get? No doubt many more, although I fail to see the difference between those draftees who died and those volunteers who died- all totaled up we lost 58,000 in Viet Nam. If you're comforted that many KIAs were volunteers then I honestly think you're mentally ill and totally detatched from reality. They were all kids, volunteers or not.

Fdiron, you forgot the third class of person who was able to avoid service in Viet Nam- the children of our ruling class like GWB and WJC. Actually it wasn't that easy to fool a draft physical in spite of what you may have heard. Basically we dropped our pants, bent over and if you had an amazinhunk without anal cysts surrounding it you passed. I guess those of us who showed up to take the physical rather than running to Canada were the stupid ones.

[capt. apathy]

Please don't go insane. During the Vietnam War, over half of the people drafted by the U.S. were able to get out serving by some means.

basicly if you had a serious reason not to go, or your daddy could buy you out of it.

if you where young and healthy but didn't have the family conections to bail you out, you got drafted or you ran to Canada.

one of the big problems I have with a draft is that military service doesn't fit in a democracy.  before you freak out, let me explain.  

it would never work to have elections for comanding officers. or voting on how to set up deffences. or other stupid crap like that.

 hell basicly all of military life is unconstitutional.  as I see it the only part that makes it acceptable to the laws of our country is that it is volantary and if you don't like the rules don't join.

[KG45]

>>Fdiron, you forgot the third class of person who was able to avoid service in Viet Nam- the children of our ruling class like GWB and WJC. <<


elfenwolf- tho i agree with the gist of your post - rich kids, like danny quayle got out of being shot at - WJC was hardly a scion of 'the ruling class'.  he was raised by a single mother on the wrong side of the tracks. he actually worked to get a scholarship to oxford. like him or loathe him, he was a guy that picked himself up by his own bootstraps.

[2Slow]

WJC was trailer trash.  Illegitimate in birth and morals.  Never held an honest job.  

Draft dodger, and bragged about it.

If he had taken care of business in his 8 years of paid vacation, 911 would not have happened.  Heck, if MFS (Mandatory Federal Service) was in effect, WJC would not have be elligable to run for office.

[KG45]

draft dodger and proud of it, eh?.

kinda like uber-hawk dick cheney - 5 draft deferments, had 'other priorties than military service' (his words). never shouldered a rifle.

after the '93 bombing of the WTC, WJC tripled the FBI's anti-terrorism funding. unfortunatetly the FBI spent most of the '90  crotch sniffing.

and last time I checked, GWB was in charge on 9/11/01. or hasn't his presidency started yet?

BTW - the perps of the '93 WTC bombing were caught and are in the slammer. where's osama?