The Afghanistan quagmire should have ended at Tora Bora.

On 9-12-01 there were (pulling this number out of my back pocket) 100,000 new recruits and re-ups willing to die taking any hill OBL might visit, although a single combat regiment team probly could have done T-B, with some super-soldiers watching the back gates.

GWOT accountability ended before the first Christmas, and has never resumed.

All you folks pining for the health of constitutional democracy ought to take a look back at the 1947 legislation creating our present national security state. Since the N.S.Act of '47, our federal executive can wage nuclear war or assume police powers anytime an acting president says it's necessary- apparently without needing to even make it 'legal' on paper. Including the activation of conscription laws, which are still on the books. Concentration camps too.

Every admin. sees it's right to keep secrets as a primary power, and is willing to defend the last admins secrets in order to preserve it's own options. Same for Obama as Nixon.

I was hoping for a mean to reconnect the people with their leaders, but I guess thinking the draft could do it is just another naive approach.

I agree with Hammel. I recall in H.S. how almost everyone hated the idea of being drafted--even more than having to take calculus. Those who did not would enlist. We knew that some well-connected kids would avoid it or arrange for non-combat duty. Generally, we agreed that, if called to serve, we would serve. The unfairness that we felt most was not so much in stealing two years of our youth, or making us kill or die for our country. The unfairness was that not everyone would be asked to help his or her country at least in some fashion. Creating a draft lottery didn't fix this, by the way, nor could it. Since then, I've believed it would be fair, and good for our country and our youth, if everyone before college would serve their country in some way--in the military or in other assignments. How many are assigned to varied assignments, and how people chosen for them, would be the secondary concern. In recent years, seeing growth in domestic needs for volunteer work, and so much demand for civilian "state building" overseas, and so much need for border patrols and guards and inspectors to counter terrorism, I think our youngsters could provide tremendous service by helping our professional military, diplomats, homeland security personnel, and others who are simply overwhelmed. Unfortunately, I also think that extreme laissez faire libertarian philosophies--and plain-old selfishness--have made it impossible for political leaders to even hint at JFK's advice to "ask not what your country can do for you . . . ."

Oops, wrong thread. Sorry, I didn't go beyond the four glass limit - I lost track of my dosage of oxycodone.

Also, I'll add several comments about a draft, or should we call it what it is: involuntary service?

I am not opposed to it, but keep in mind, when we were implementing the draft before, that didn't stop us from involving ourselves in America's last long quagmire in S.E. Asia. Why would anything change with conficts of choice - the M.O.A. perhaps?

Yes, the M.O.A., Mother's of America, bless their hearts, will indeed put pressure on politicians all right. . .but pressure that will cause us to bring back risk aversive training to keep accidents at an acceptable level, leading to returning to a past mediocre force we had.

Additionally, the liberal establishment will demand another Robert McNamara 10,000 experiment flushed into the ranks, which may be why 30% of the casualties in Viet-Nam came from the 25% of draftees that made up our force during our war there.

Just a few thoughts before I crash.

SOLDIERSDIARY, during the War for Independence local militias’ were compelled upon pain of death to mobilize if the main army required their assistance. This certainly had the same impact as a draft since in many areas all military age men were required to be members of the militia. The same is true for the War of 1812, which is now considered as stupid and unnecessary a war as this nation ever fought but once again compelled the militia in regions affected by the war to serve.

Of course during the Civil War the Confederates instituted conscription almost immediately and the Union after a very bad 1862 saw volunteering virtually vanish and were forced to implement a conscription act as encouragement. That draft caused the worst rioting in American history in southern sympathetic New York City in the summer of 1863 largely by Irish immigrant community.

JPWREL: How many militia members suffered the pain of death in the Revolution when they didn't show up? Not many I think, though I'll have to look it up. The militia system was NOT a functional equivalent of a draft. The heart of the resistance in that conflict were the Continentals. I believe they were volunteers.

I don't think a draft is the norm in American history.

The first peacetime draft in American history was passed by the Senate on September 16, 1940, the first drawing took place on October 16, and the first draftees reported for duty on November 15. It followed on an August 27, 1940, resolution by the Congress to federalize the National Guard and Reserves.

The whole scheme was driven to fruition by fears following on the Fall of France in June 1940, but it was spurred by an influential lobby of prominent New Yorkers who met on May 8, 1940, as members of the Military Training Camps Association on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their own call to arms as officer volunteers. The World War I Draft Act of 1917 was passed after a declaration of war had been made.

at that time. They weren't buying into the whole Evangelical crusading basket of "isms" to remake and reform the nation.

While they did not riot like the Irish, I think it noteworthy that the older established German communities, descendants of 19th-century Rhinelander and Swiss colonists were more reluctant to serve the Union cause than the German immigrants of the 1840s. These older German communities were, dare I say, more insular and less idealistic than the 19th-century German communities.

A good article on this is by Christian Keller in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
"Pennsylvania and Virginia Germans during the Civil War: A Brief History and Comparative Analysis"

Some of the antiwar feeling was based on religious Anabaptist Pacifism, but this reluctance, according to Keller, wasn't limited to Mennonites and Brethren. It is debatable how pervasive this anti-war attitude was amongst these German communities. But I think it noteworthy because these older German communities didn't partake in the Anglo-Saxon Evangelical tradition.

at that time. They weren't buying into the whole Evangelical crusading basket of "isms" to remake and reform the nation.

While they did not riot like the Irish, I think it noteworthy that the older established German communities, descendants of 18th-century Rhinelander and Swiss colonists were more reluctant to serve the Union cause than the German immigrants of the 1840s. These older German communities were, dare I say, more insular and less idealistic than the 19th-century German communities.

A good article on this is by Christian Keller in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
"Pennsylvania and Virginia Germans during the Civil War: A Brief History and Comparative Analysis"

Some of the antiwar feeling was based on religious Anabaptist Pacifism, but this reluctance, according to Keller, wasn't limited to Mennonites and Brethren. It is debatable how pervasive this anti-war attitude was amongst these German communities. But I think it noteworthy because these older German communities didn't partake in the Anglo-Saxon Evangelical tradition.

LITTLEMANTATE, it is also interesting that people of German background served in the war in far larger absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population than did the Irish. Most people including enthusiastic but uninformed re-enactors are usually unaware of this since they think John Ford movies are real history. The Irish also had the highest desertion rate of the major ethnic groups at least in the Union Army. Incidentally, those devastating riots in NYC by largely Irish mobs were directed mainly against free blacks.

is there a further breakdown of those Germans? In other words, would it disprove Keller's theory regarding differences in attitudes between the descendants of the 18th-century German colonists and 19th-century German immigrants?

German-Americans are a pretty ignored group, they've failed to capture the late 20th and 21-century national imagination in the way that the Irish-Americans have. While not a scientific methodology, for me what bears this out is go to any major bookstore chain and in the history section the works written on Irish and Irish-Americans dwarfs that of Germans. There is a large section on "Germany", but that tends to be dominated by WW2 stuff, not surprisingly.

This dearth of attention can probably be explained, in part, because of a destruction of corporate German-American life because of Teutonophobia during the World Wars. I think Germans are a significant group because they represent the first large-scale non-English speaking groups to come to the US. And many of the same arguments one hears about the Hispanization of the US were made about the Germanization of PA. Ben Franklin in particular was a Teutonophobe who had some notions that even Tom Tancredo would blanch at.

In the Border States there was Teutonophobia and nativism during the Civil War, as you probably well know. But, I've never seen any author write about how this Teutonophobia was possibly complicated by a not insignificant German ancestral element in the Anglophone, native white Protestant population of Missouri, Kentucky, Southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. My question is, was it really anti-German or anti-Catholic?

...Historically women weren't allowed to vote, people could own slaves, countries had bigoted systems of second-class status for certain citizens based on ethnic or religious reasons, rule of law was arbitrarily applied, most countries had leaders that were dynastic, etc etc.

Making 'historical' points is basically stupid. There's a reason we've moved on. going backward in time and arguing that the future should depend on the past is retrograde and idiotic. A draft is not only not needed, its fundamentally at odds with the nature of everything the American system has produced in the last century. You want to roll back the clock so we can reinvent democracy into some sort of quasi-China-like-massive-state that has ultimate authority over the freedom of every citizen from birth to death? Go for it. I don't expect the idea to survive beyond the narrow confines of Tom Ricks blog.

Anti-Catholic to be sure. We live in a different world today where hardly anyone gives two figs about the differences between different Christian sects. But the founders of this country reflecting their Protestant Anglo-Saxon history of struggle for survival against Catholic France and Spain and their more recent memories of the 1688 Glorious Revolution held the Roman Catholic Church in about the same regard as rabid dogs. The residue of contempt remained in our society until World War 2 and even up to Jack Kennedy’s campaign for President, which is rather amazing since he was in his own words Catholic in name only but was suspected as if he was an agent of Rome.

Yes Ducky, better an army of slaves than an army of volunteers.

"To hate the draft is to love war..." In the school of argumentative discourse, that statement is a shining example the what is called Stacking The Deck.

I was going to say something like:

Tom, Can we please get some new material around here? It's been like 6 or 7 posts in the last week or so that were about the Draft.

But then I realized that Rubber Duck makes EVERY POST about the draft. So carry on.

------
IOBC Chaplain once said "Don't ever love anything that can't love you back." He was talking about the Army, but I think War would count too.

But me, I loves me some War...in fact new improved War is the tastiest stuff out there. You can eat as much as you like and 30 mins later you are hungry again. War is awesome.

Oh wait a minute...having been there a couple times....its not so great, but it is what I signed up for. And since there is a dearth of people willing to do so, guess that is a good thing.

One thing I am certain of, if my kid decides to sign up too (like I did) I'll thank them for their service and wish them well and pray (hard and long) for their safe return. But anyone who wants to take them by force can go fuck themselves.

Why just yesterday Ducky was talking about Feather Merchants.

Break. Break.

So Hunter...hypotheticalEx..your child turns 18 and is draftable. Uncle Sugar takes them into the Army. But child could "sign up" at same age an end up in the same place. What's the difference? Is it the force? If so what makes that child different from a defermentee--usually defined as one skilled at draft-avoidance? Think: "I had better things to do in the 60's".

I agree with the basic immorality of conscripting a kid to go fight in a war of choice. But, isn't it just as immoral to sell that kid as a slave, because he/she will be paying taxes and said taxes will be based on his/her labor, to defend Germany, South Korea or Kuwait? You mentioned sometime ago that you felt we needed to defend the weak in places like Iraq. My question, what if my child or me says we don't feel like doing so. I have no way to opt out of paying my part of the war debt, and if I try men will come to my house and take it or my possessions or even cart me off to jail and if I try to resist violence could be used against me. Make no mistake, our actions in Iraq, including the Altruistic ones, rest on potential violence against the Amerian taxpayer.

My somewhat childish critique of the State's monopoly on violence and taxation notwithstanding, I fail to see how you can distinguish between the draft as servitude and taxes levied on the civilians to fund the war, whether they agree with it or not, as not being a form of servitude.

In fact, what we are doing now is even more immoral because we are selling our children and the unborn to provide services to a foreign population. It sounds altruistic until you realize those who will pay for all of this aren't being asked. If we wronged the Iraqis and we owe them anything in terms of sins of omission or commission, then the most moral action would be for this generation, or at least everyone 18 and older as of the invasion to have a special lone-time war-tax placed on us all to pay for it.

I believe in serving your nation, I beleive in giving back to a country that offers so much. But I feel that in the marketplace of ideas that if the cause is just enough people will volunteer - if it isn't they won't. That is a problem for the politicians to solve.

I'd love for my kid to serve - if that is their choice. I beleive in the value in serving in the military - even the Navy - for tons of different reasons. But if their choice is not to serve then that is their choice too. It's back to the idea of "I may not agree with what you say but I defend to the death your right to say it." The real problem here is a matter of scale and logic. A draft says "we are going to hold you hostage, you aren't allowed to make this choice, we made it for you; furthermore this particular choice sets the conditions that you are going to risk your life - exponentially more than you normally do - and possibly kill or be killed. And if you don't do this thing we are making you do - well you can face imprisonment or loss of liberty, or death." Go to war or go to jail = horseshit.

In a country founded on the concept of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness how can we justify such a cognitive dissonance?

I don't remember a comment about defending the weak in Iraq - but I'll assume that I said it. I have also said that I am a libertarian (small L) at heart. I don't like the idea of enormous tax burdens, but I'm not an extremist about these things. I recognize that there's lots of services that we get wholesale benefit from - that would be unwieldy at best if we had to pay for each in turn. Tom Ricks mentioned not being able to have roads or clean air in a recent post - thats silly and it undermines community. I like the basic idea that government should be mostly limited to police, military and judiciary (to deal with the criminals and solve civil disputes between free men) but I recognize that that ideal no longer holds true.

Yes, we are in a certain amount of servitude as a result of taxation, and yep force can be used in that regard. I don't necessarily like that either, but I don't have a way around it. I particularly dislike the fact that we are taxed on income and then taxed again when we spend said income. But again I see such a huge difference between paying a meager share of money in taxes (and we really do have ridiculously low tax rates versus some of our 1st world counterparts) and sending someone to kill or be killed.

I don't profess to have all the answers for the dualities of taxation - I'm not an economist either. I am however a sorta career Army officer who has studied my field intensely for most of my life. I know that forcing someone to go to war at the point of a gun is the height of immorality. Doing so with some failed notion that it is leverage to get skin in the game and hold unaccountable pols accountable is even worse. And it is proven not to work.

can't believe you said that....

I'm starting to think that the phrase "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is getting very worn out and abused. We can read in these recent threads the growing dissonance between the warrior class and the rest of the country's citizenry. This "defend to the death" stuff seems to place a higher moral self worth upon the warriors (sorry for use of that word if it bugs anyone). It also seems to give carte blanche to a huge portion of our society to, well, basically fuckoff and do as they wish, taking "Life, Liberty, and Happiness" quite literally and selfishly. We both rant about more Americans knowing "Jersey Shore" than the Korengal. In fact, the Korengal bores the hell out of most Americans, I dare say.

This leaves the dirty work of defense of the Nation to a separate class of Americans; a separate class always so unless some type of homongonizer is put in place. What else but a draft would do this?

The word 'draft' or one of its derivatives is in the posting's title, twice in Tom's introduction, 10 times in the basic piece, and 40 times so far in comments other than mine. So how did I make this 'about the draft?' It sorta seemed to be already, huh.

How bout every other post? C'mon you have to admit. "AVF, AVF, AVF". That and "the Army sux" has to be a hotkey on your keyboard.

Take it outside.

come on Retired Dinasour, you can do better...how about an intelligent comment like "Go Win a War" or as Hunter said AVF AVF AVF!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_said_I_may_not_agree_with_what_you_say_but_I_will_defend_to_the_death_your_right_to_say_it

In any case I didn't make it up. And my point wasn't to say "the crusaders are coming home soon and boy are the gonna be pissed." On the contrary I am saying that despite my intense dislike of many things I might hear from people in this country I recognize that their freedom to say it is paramount - and I am a defender of that as a commissioned officer in the service.

I don't like a separation between military and populace. I don't like that our populace is largely uneducated and uncaring about current events and history. But I wonder if it hasn't always sorta been this way? Short of the Spartans who were practically all military - hasn't every society been separated between the citizens and warrior class, some extremely so? Hasn't every citizenry been suspicious of the military and vice versa?

I wish more people would be serve by their own volition, but I certainly don't want them to serve absent that choice.

Have a great weekend Hunter.
Beat Army.

Although the chances are slim, I am duty bound to say BEAT NAVY.

for certain, the tension between personal autonomy and communal stability. I do, however, think that all able-bodied citizens, folks exercising all the rights and privileges granted them by the community, should be required to defend those rights or be denied the vote and other rights. There are certain things Americans shouldn't be able to pay their way out of. To defend the Republic, to spread liberal democracies around the globe, and to fight the ingestion of herbal materials and the marketing thereof, however, are all very different things. And I am not required to secure the blessings of liberty and tranquility for the inhabitants of country X and their descendants. In plain terms, none of this would even be an issue if we weren't trapped by this poisonous Jacobin American Exceptionalism ideology that might have suffered a setback by Iraq, but is still strong.

Back to defending the Republic, not everyone has to be a trigger puller, however. But they should participate. Yet the responsibility of defending these rights and risking life and limb has traditionally fallen on young men. While there is a very pratical element to that consideration, I think it immoral. In fact, I kind of think the whole soldier vs. civilian thing a little arbitrary. I'm not advocating atrocities, but I think, for example, Sherman had it right. Civilians are responsible, in their own way, for the actions of their leaders. I won't expand on it too much, but knock it up to the irrational aspect of human society to assign blame or sacrificial status on a specific group. We say young men should fight, the Ancient Egyptians used to sacrifice red-haired people. Ours is only slightly more defensible than the other.

I've peers my age and older who lead active lives and are pretty bellicose. They should be liable to be drafted. Drafting older guys is usually only a last resort, even those older fellows as potentially politically active players might be far more responsible for the current wars. On a practical standpoint, if somebody can play tennis 2-3 times a week or whatever, they can go do some campaigning overseas particularly in wars they support. Same for women. Let 'em do needed manual labor if fighting isn't practical.

I agree with your position regarding it not being proper for a soldier, as we understand the idea now (very important to make that distinction), to weigh in or refuse to participate. I joined the AF (for the cash for college, I come from one of those communities where the military is employment option/social safety valve) while we were bombing Serbia. I was completely opposed to the action, and maybe I lacked the courage of my convictions, but I figured once I took the oath it wasn't for me to question. However, having been John Q. Public for years, I've a right to engage in hyperbole.

Thanks Tom, yours is a good and precise explanation of the use of patriot militia. Actually, Washington detested the militia when part of his army complaining that they ate all his rations and fled at the first sight of British Grenadiers bayonet.

For readers of your blog a good source on this topic is ‘The Continental Army’ by Robert Wright and outstanding is ‘A Glorious Cause’ by Middlekauf. The Civil War historian Joe Bilby (just as knowledgeable about the War for Independence particularly in New Jersey where it was really a civil war) has written an excellent book on both the Loyalist and Patriot militias of New Jersey and how they were used to control and influence the population of divided loyalties.

Thanks for the book list. I wish I had enough time to read half of the recomendations I find on this blog

Mr. Ricks: I am a bit puzzled by your comment. My original comment was just to point out an error in Mr. Morris' article that may have a small bearing on his argument. An addition to that had to do with how militia was turned out. I said nothing about the military or political utility of the militia. I can't see what bearing that has on how they were turned out.

I just checked Higgenbotham's book, the only one I have at hand, and he mentioned that since the whole militia couldn't be called out at any one time, there wouldn't have been any males left to do the chores, they sensibly used the younger and better trained men. If enough men didn't respond to a call up, they used bounties to induce more men to turn out. They were using money as an incentive to get men to volunteer. If your object is to get men to volunteer, you cannot look at that system as a draft. The militia system as practiced, was not a draft. It was the American militia system.

The author of The American Culture of War had some interesting things to say about how our culture affects the way we raise armies. That was a good book by the way. A lot of very interesting ideas and well written. It needed a harder editor though. Someone to look at a page and say "Shorter!"

I had friends say exactly the same thing to me in 1988 when I left for one of those places TR doesn't like. Later I had a young lady say "Well I am glad you are there to [do this thing]" I never found out if she meant "so I don't have to" or "because you seem to have your head screwed on straight and seem an upright sort of guy."

You'll figure it out the minute before you stand before your first platoon. If you're smart you'll realize you've been given a golden opportunity to do something beyond yourself. You'll realize the huge mantel of responsibility upon your shoulders...you'll have been blessed with your nation's children with the understanding that your job is to make them and yourself a well-honed professional force capable of doing your job and bringing them all home safe. You won't be burdened or worried about soldiers who were forced at the point of a gun to serve in an adventure they never had any intention of being in. I wouldn't want to be the slavemaster to that child, you shouldn't either. No mother wants their child to go to war, but imagine the difference it makes that the child has chosen, or was enslaved?

It is indeed a profession, but one with a singular purpose....fight your nations wars. To do that, you deter (first mission of the military) by your professionalim and when called you fight. You will fulfill that duty - not for country (though it is important), not for honor (though that too is important) but for those soldiers who are looking to you and your Platoon sergeant to lead them into harms' way and then back out again. It can and should be YOUR DREAM JOB.

I have a coin on my desk. It sums up the two most important things you could learn about being in the military. One quote is from GS Patton they other from Abrams. Abrams said "People are not in the Army, People are the Army." Patton said "I am an American Soldier, I fight where I am told and I win where I fight." To some that might sound like jingoism, but the message is clear. Take care of your people, do your job. One facilitates the other.

Good luck. Your experience will be very different than my own, but looking on with full knowledge of what the past has held and what might be in the future I would trade places with you in a heartbeat.

TDude11—I think you will find that when the time comes for you to decide to stay or go, the reasons and motivations that drive that decision are going to be different from the reasons you joined. And later, should you decide to stay for a career, the reasons you decide to make it a career will be different again. Circumstances change and so will you.

Forget the “mercenary” label. The Soviets called us that when I first came in. I don’t mean to imply that anyone who uses the term equates to the Soviets, only that the label has been with us for a very long time. If we could read the minds of others, the label might apply to some junior enlisted; it becomes more tenuous at the mid-grade NCO and might be true of a few junior officers, but it’s an improvable argument, so why waste time?

If you stay after your initial commitment, you will need to be prepared to be disappointed most of the time. There will be a few times, very few, when you will know in your core that you have affected history, if only for a moment. (My favorite headline from the “The Onion” is “Existentialist Fireman Delays Death of Five.”) Even if you follow the advice of my OCS TAC and worry about the five meter area of the Army around you, it’s still hard to make a difference.

You have probably heard this before, and will again, but physical courage is abundant in the Army, but moral courage is much harder to find. This is truer as you go up in rank. It’s actually easy to embody the Warrior Spirit and live the Army values at 30MPH in 70 tons of chobham armor; it’s tougher after three years in a cubicle at the Pentagon watching your painstaking research and fact finding get written off as “the wrong message.”

And think hard about that “dream job.” It absolutely was, for me, as a cavalry lieutenant in Germany at the end of the Cold War. The deployments add up and take the luster off, sure. Then the frustrating staff assignments add up. Then spend half a day and all of a Friday evening making a couple of Sergeants Major walk through a freaking wreath laying ceremony (how I spent yesterday) and you continue to wonder about the dream job.

But the wreath ceremony is to honor five Soldiers from the regiment who died this year and two families are coming to the ceremony on Monday. So, I’ll make sure the rehearsals are done and inspect the bell and check the sheen on the floor, because sometimes, all I can do is worry about those five meters of the Army around me.

Oh, yeah, and they are also days like today when I get to walk across the street and watch the Army-Navy game with a group of people I barely know and are still my brothers, hosted by a member of USMA 44. Go Army! Beat Navy!

I found this post extremely interesting and insightful. Almost everything contained in the first caused me to think twice about common social norms regarding the military. Then this happened. "You don't get to complain that our wars are going poorly because of our lack of cultural sensitivity. You're as much the source of the problem as the redneck war criminal grunt who kills civilians." Yes yes we do. Civilians have as much right to critique and denounce the military as we like. Its part of living in a democratic society. What happened to many service members returning from Vietnam was awful, but it is part of democracy. Critique of the military helps keep it honest. Second many of the people you describe will most likely become government workers in some capacity, either at the DoD or State. They then are in charge. Like it our not those civilians have not only the right but responsibility to critique the military. The United States has civilian control of the military for a very specific reason. Armies through history have shown themselves incapable of either self-reflection or restraint in the long-term. So decry the intelligent academics all you wish, but in the end critique of the military is not only their right, but proper function in a democratic society.

Great post Lester. I also don't know what they are thanking me for. It makes me uncomfortable, but compliments do the same so it's probably something a psychologist would have to identify. It took a long while, but I figured out the best thing to do is smile, say thank you, and go about my business. The people are trying to show their appreciation, but really don't know how to go about it or what else they could do, so they express their thanks in a direct manner. Nothing really wrong with that and it's much better than the alternative.

While that sort of thing makes me uncomfortable, people calling me a hero just really pisses me off. Especially when it comes from the chain of command. On my first deployment we were told we were hero's so many times I almost shared my thoughts with the two star in charge. Not a good career move though so I zipped it.

Being in the rear with the gear doesn't make you a hero, and people need to stop throwing that word around. Save it for the people who really deserve it.