[Bob Tanner]

I heard something today which gave me a bit of pause...
Our newly elected president has promised 3 million new jobs for Americans, with 80% of those new jobs in the private sector (government).
He has also pledged a large increase in military presence in Afghanistan.
Could it be that, after he is inaugurated, he might re-institute the draft and conscript young, unemployed Americans into the military?
This happened in 1934, at the height of the Great Depression, and was a expended greatly by the SMSTA in 1940.
Our military is short handed now, with a lot of the weight being taken up by reservist and National Guardsmen.
Could it (a draft) happen again?

[LSC9901]

Originally Posted by Bob Tanner

I heard something today which gave me a bit of pause...
Our newly elected president has promised 3 million new jobs for Americans, with 80% of those new jobs in the private sector (government).
He has also pledged a large increase in military presence in Afghanistan.
Could it be that, after he is inaugurated, he might re-institute the draft and conscript young, unemployed Americans into the military?
This happened in 1934, at the height of the Great Depression, and was a expended greatly by the SMSTA in 1940.
Our military is short handed now, with a lot of the weight being taken up by reservist and National Guardsmen.
Could it (a draft) happen again?

Should I be concerned Bob ??? After all I am not working.

[Bette]

Originally Posted by LSC9901

Should I be concerned Bob ??? After all I am not working.

Nah, after all, the military does have standards.

[Quality88]

Originally Posted by Bette

Nah, after all, the military does have standards.

Ba-zing... youch

[simple simon]

Originally Posted by Bob Tanner

Our military is short handed now

well how on earth did that ever happen ......... oh yeah ...... thats right ... Bill Clinton decided to totally tear apart our active military and send everyone home

Could it (a draft) happen again?

honestly Bob it wouldnt bother me in the slightest ..... i think it would be good for most of the little punks ..... i hope it is an equal opportunity event (boys and girls) ........ i also hope weight is not an issue ..... so long as there is no medical problem they need to draft heavy kids too .. an hour of PT a day would do them wonders

i also think it would help the economy for everyone .... all these new GI's would now have money to spend ... and they would also need products so factories would spring to life creating more new jobs ..... and trucking and lumpers (ask Bob he knows what i mean) .... and all these people would have more money to spend

the more i think about it the more i like the idea

[Bob Tanner]

Originally Posted by simple simon

well how on earth did that ever happen ......... oh yeah ...... thats right ... Bill Clinton decided to totally tear apart our active military and send everyone home

honestly Bob it wouldnt bother me in the slightest ..... i think it would be good for most of the little punks ..... i hope it is an equal opportunity event (boys and girls) ........ i also hope weight is not an issue ..... so long as there is no medical problem they need to draft heavy kids too .. an hour of PT a day would do them wonders


the more i think about it the more i like the idea

I'll defer response to your first part. That horse has been beaten to death.

IRT your second part, all I can say is that there are a lot of kids out there who desperately need to have their dinner plate broken and be kicked out of the nest.

But, what intrigues me most are the political ramifications of such a change in policy. That will/would be a real hoot.

[Racer Duck]

I'm trying to figure out how this fits into the "take from the 'haves' and give to the 'have-nots'" campaign promise (which any politician worth his "company jet" & leather chair would quickly discard after elected) ... so far I can't make it get anywhere close. what am I doing wrong?

btw: I have little doubt they'll pass on drafting me .. they can't afford my half dozen daily pills... come to think of it, neither can I!!!

[LSC9901]

Originally Posted by Quality88

Ba-zing... youch

I just consider the source ! After all ... I'm educated by the US Navy !!!

[azrael492]

I may be a little selfish, but I don't want my children going to war. I appreciate everything that the troops have done, but they chose to serve.

[Bette]

Originally Posted by Quality88

Ba-zing... youch

Well, they do have standards. Age, sight, and all that. Why? What do you think I meant?

[Bette]

I have heard this mentioned before. Last year maybe about the draft being brought back.
I dont want my grandkids going to war, at least this one, but I do know what Bob means about the dinner plate needs to be broken.
As far as political ramifications, yowzie. And that is as far as I can take that one.

[Robertdjr]

I don't mean to offend anybody, but if I remember correctly, the last time we had a draft, especially the last 2 years of it in 71 and 72, we had rich kids finding all kinds of ways to avoid it (like going to college in England for example), we had scared kids running off to Canada, and we had poor kids getting drafted into the service, who didn't want to be there, who came back home drug addicts. Not to mention the negative morale they took with them. So unless I'm convinced a new draft would be handled differently, and the incentives aren't just bait, I'd have to be against it.

[Bob Tanner]

Originally Posted by Robertdjr

I don't mean to offend anybody, but if I remember correctly, the last time we had a draft, especially the last 2 years of it in 71 and 72, we had rich kids finding all kinds of ways to avoid it (like going to college in England for example), we had scared kids running off to Canada, and we had poor kids getting drafted into the service, who didn't want to be there, who came back home drug addicts. Not to mention the negative morale they took with them. So unless I'm convinced a new draft would be handled differently, and the incentives aren't just bait, I'd have to be against it.

I didn't bring up this as a way to vote for or against a Selective Service conscription. It brought it up as a point of discussion as how the coming administration can grow the number of government employees to an even more bloated and ineffective bureaucracy than it already is. An ironic possibility, if you will.

As a point of disclosure I happen to agree with a military draft, if administered fairly and equably. I look upon service to our country, either in the military of in some service corp, as a right of passage toward adulthood. Though parents and grandparents cringe to hear it, it would do the majority of kids a world of good to be separated from the family umbilical cord and subsist on their own. Selective Service would be a logical step in that direction.

FWIW I agree about 'Nam. Not that it's important but I did a total of thirteen months on Yankee Station, and was in-country 268 days before being medivac'd out. It was a war we got into for the wrong reasons (placating the French by siding with them against Ho Chi Minh when he kicked their ass at Dien Bien Phu, and trying to keep them in NATO which failed because they bailed on us in 1966). Then the war was "managed," and not "led." It was "managed" poorly by corrupt high-ranking military officers and out-right stupid and self-serving politicians.

Yeah, it left a bad taste in a lot of folks mouths, mine included, my scars and limp notwithstanding.

A draft might even indirectly reintroduce patriotism to our youth again? I'll share a person anecdote: From June, '85 until April, '88 I was a Navy Recruiter in Roanoke, VA. During that period I put around 115 bodies in uniform. I, honestly, can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I enlisted who raised their hand for patriotic reasons. The majority felt no obligation to serve their country. They swore to serve and protect mostly for: Desperation [a]out of work, running from something, etc.) or [b] wanting something ( schooling, money for education, etc., etc.). I don't know how everyone else feels but to me that is a sad commentary.


Sure. I'd be for a draft IF it were done right. I think it would go a long way toward straightening out some of what currently ails our wonderful country. But, to be honest, I very seriously doubt that it is within the scope of our recent, current or future administrations to pull that one off. I fear it'd end up like the draft on the late '60s, which reminds me of the metaphor concerning a bunch of monkeys and a football.

[Racer Duck]

don't think you can pin the drug use from '71 & '72 on the draft. that was the "hippie" culture and drugs were much easier to get back then than today. it wasn't unusual then to walk into a club and get high on 2nd hand smoke and you could get a reefer from every third person on the street...

a lot of the other stuff was also due to the "hippie" culture, aka "Peace" movement. they created a political atmosphere where "running from responsibility" was acceptable. and politicians were the worst of the lot 'cause they'd stand up and make speeches on the virtue of "joining up" while their kids were "exempted"...

there's a lot of that kind of thinking today also - so many people don't want to have to pay for any of their freedoms .. they'd rather somebody else pay for them and they sure don't want to be "inconvenienced"! they don't want to send their kids to war "over there" .. the other choice is to bring the war "over here". then where do you send your kids?

in Isreal they have a mandatory draft for EVERYBODY that's physically able and of the right age. but then they also have the war in their neighborhoods and on their doorstep. guess that's possible here too...

but some things are different today .. when I joined up in the early '60s, a serviceman's job was all but iron clad guaranteed when he got out and he could get a ride just about anywhere just by wearing his uniform and sticking his thumb out. and folks would even buy him coffee and a burger if he was hungry.

then by the '70s when the servicemen came home from the war they couldn't get a job and were even spit on as they came thru the airport! in fact, in order to try to bypass the abuse their commanders would "suggest" they change to civies so they'd be less recognizable and therefore stand a chance of slipping past their abusers. but it didn't help much....

if the current "hippie" mindset continues to grow, we'll see history repeat itself and the next 9/11 won't be far behind. and the war will be on Main Street, USA. then where are those folks gonna hide?

[Robertdjr]

Originally Posted by Racer Duck

don't think you can pin the drug use from '71 & '72 on the draft. that was the "hippie" culture and drugs were much easier to get back then than today. it wasn't unusual then to walk into a club and get high on 2nd hand smoke and you could get a reefer from every third person on the street...

I agree with you on that, but I wasn't saying the drug use in 71 and 72 was due to the draft. I was trying to say, by the time the draft was discontinued, we'd spent years drafting poor kids, sending them to Vietnam, and they were coming back home, in large numbers, addicted to heroine and opium. They compounded the number of addicts and drug users already in this country who didn't go, for whatever reason. I'm just concerned if we start a draft, history would repeat itself.