January 1, 2003
PRO DRAFT:
Bring Back the Draft (CHARLES B. RANGEL, December 31, 2002, NY Times)[A]s a combat veteran of the Korean conflict, I believe that if we are going to send our children to war, the governing principle must be that of shared sacrifice. Throughout much of our history, Americans have been asked to shoulder the burden of war equally.That's why I will ask Congress next week to consider and support legislation I will introduce to resume the military draft.
Carrying out the administration's policy toward Iraq will require long-term sacrifices by the American people, particularly those who have sons and daughters in the military. Yet the Congress that voted overwhelmingly to allow the use of force in Iraq includes only one member who has a child in the enlisted ranks of the military - just a few more have children who are officers.
I believe that if those calling for war knew that their children were likely to be required to serve - and to be placed in harm's way - there would be more caution and a greater willingness to work with the international community in dealing with Iraq. A renewed draft will help bring a greater appreciation of the consequences of decisions to go to war.
Service in our nation's armed forces is no longer a common experience. A disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groupsmake up the enlisted ranks of the military, while the most privileged Americans are underrepresented or absent.
We need to return to the tradition of the citizen soldier - with alternative national service required for those who cannot serve because of physical limitations or reasons of conscience.
Mr. Rangel's notion that fathers would hesitate to send their sons to war is belied by several thousand years of human history--after all, what better demonstrates filial piety than a son's willingness to face death at his father's command?--but his basic idea still has some merit for purely social reasons.
One of the things that never ceases to astonish is when some random talking head of the generation prior to ours casually mentions, almost always with a mixture of pride and disdain, his military service. When you watch Mark Shields and Bob Novak barking at each other, you're watching two vets and the other night on C-SPAN William F. Buckley mentioned that he'd been in the infantry. Could the mind of God conceive of a more unlikely soldier than Mr. Buckley? But they all, no matter how improbably, share that common bond, if no other. That seems like a worthwhile thing.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 1, 2003 11:03 AMThe draft was the reason the Vietnam War was so unpopular with eastern kids who thought they could wind up going to fight the Viet Cong.
Frankly the US military now depends on a highly trained core of professionals it can rely on to get the job done. I doubt the draft would make them more militarily effective however popular a tool of social engineering it may be.
Absent some crisis, which is absent, conscription
is abhorrent to anyone who cares about
liberty.
Of course, conservatives get uneasy about
liberty when the free go off in directions they
disapprove of. See Plattsburg Movement.
William McNeill, in one of his throwaways that
keeps you thinking for years afterward, mentioned
once that he thought someone should do a
study of the effects on society of marching.
As Orrin notes, armies (usually) create solidarity.
Whether that's a good thing or not depends.
It wasn't good for Germans.
Germany was a great nation when it marched as one, now it's in the crapper.
Posted by: oj at January 1, 2003 2:01 PMFor what my opinion is worth, I hated every minute I spent in the army back during the Vietnam war. Perhaps it was the fact that I was under the control of people I, in my arrogance at the time, felt were my intellectual inferiors. Perhaps it was because I chafed under anyone's control after eight years of Catholic school and eighteen years of my father's rules. Over thirty years later, however, I look at those years as pricelessly formative. I left the army confident and more formed as an adult and my college grades reflected it. My wife and I, in observing our daughter and her many friends, have come to the conclusion that most of them would benefit greatly from service to their country under the tutelage of such as first sergeant Albert C. Charles or whoever has taken his place these days. The Vietnam era bred a contempt for the military that sent politicians running for the cover of abolishing the draft and we today have a generation of youth who know nothing of service Let's not forget the architects of that misbegotten conflict: Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara. Perhaps the lesson to be learned may have something to do with what happens when liberal Democrats are allowed to design a war where our youth can get themselves sacrificed for a forlorn and halfhearted effort. When there's something worth defending, and there is much I think in that category, and grownups are in charge, then the cynicism may not manifest itself. Our Army is the finest on earth and it is all volunteer. There are good arguments to be made that we should leave well enough alone. Obviously, I lament the loss of an institution I despised as a youth because I think that loss deprives young people of an experience that is not only valuable to them, but makes our country stronger by building better citizens.
On the other hand, I'm responding to the proposal of another liberal Democrat and that scares me.
Jerry's comments make Heinlein's prescription (veterans solely have the franchise) seem logical. I'm trying to deal with the issue of whether to tell my firstborn to consider enlisting rather than going to college. Not only would he benefit more from the structure than the education, but he'd come back after an enlistment knowing what type of job he doesn't want to do, even if he decided to go OTS or whatever officer candidate school he could get into after one tour.
Posted by: Tom Roberts at January 1, 2003 7:02 PMOrrin wrote: "Mr. Rangel's notion that fathers would hesitate to send their sons to war is belied by several thousand years of human history-- ..."
I believe it was P. J. O'Rourke who wrote that not until you had a teenage son could you understand why old men would start wars and send young men to fight them.
Regards,
At a fraternity reunion of the classes of, roughly, 1962-1971, I was surprised at how many had served.
One observed that, at a party, it takes about fourteen seconds to decide who's a veteran and who not to pay attention to.
David Hackworth, who had some cogent things to say before he joined the black helicopter crowd, said he loved draftees because they cared only about becoming civilians again. He regarded that as a check on militarism, and so do I.
Militarism should be checked.
But we don't need a draft now.
Harry -
Hackworth is a great example of a smart and brave man ruined by good publicity. Newsweek succeeded where the VC failed.
That, and living in the past.
He served in the irredenta zone at age 18 and decided that was all he needed to tell what was what in South Slavia 45 years later.
I interviewed him by telephone when his first book was published. A charming guy.