Feel a Draft?

"We're going to have to face that question," Senator Joe Biden told Tim Russert last Sunday when asked about the likelihood of a draft. "It is going to be a subject, if, in fact, there's a 40 percent shortfall in recruitment. It's just a reality." Unfortunately, Biden and others are probably right.

The Army has missed its recruiting targets since February and last month unexpectedly lowered its benchmark from 8,050 to 6,700 recruits and still only reached 75 percent of that downsized goal. The National Guard and Reserve have suffered a similar 25 percent shortfall. These recruiting declines are largely why the Army has only 35,000 of the 80,000 troops needed to rotate into Iraq and elsewhere next year.

The lagging numbers, a product of inflexible military policies and an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, have forced a full-blown recruiting crisis. Last month the Army added 1,200 recruiters, boosted its advertising budget, upped enlistment bonuses from $6,000 to $20,000 per recruit and even offered $50,000 in low-rate home mortgages. They've also slashed the enlistment period from two years to 15 months and raised the eligible age for National Guard and Reserves from 35 to 39. In an attempt to plug the hole, the Army is recruiting more high-school dropouts with lower test scores. Applicants who score in the 10th to 30th percentile range on the military's standardized aptitude test are now being accepted at higher rates. Making matters worse, junior Army leaders are quitting after their enlistment.

The effects have been alarming. For the first time in twenty years, the Army suspended recruiting on May 20 to hold a full day of ethics training for its recruiters. The ethical breaches include "the recruitment of a mentally ill young man in Ohio and a recruiter in Houston who threatened to arrest an applicant if he failed to join," the New York Times reported. The abuses, said top Army recruiter Michael Rochelle, "were just flying under my radar." Reported recruiting improprieties are up 60 percent since 1999, with recruiters themselves suffering from stress-related illnesses, damaged marriages and suicidal thoughts.

Next year could be the toughest for recruiting since the all-volunteer Army began in 1973, Maj. Gen. Rochelle predicts. "It's comparable to having no savings account," added RAND Corp specialist Beth Asch. "They'll be living month to month." The hiring of poorly educated, unqualified troops will likely force a critical drop in the capabilities, training and readiness of the modern military, experts predict.

"America faces a choice," Paul Glastris and former Army captain Phil Carter wrote in the Washington Monthly in March. "It can be the world's superpower, or it can maintain the all-volunteer military, but it probably can't do both."

It's time to have this debate across the country, and especially in Washington.

Comments (20)

1. Conservatives in general feel there is no need for a draft. Many members of my family have chosen to serve. It is good for America to reward them handsomely for their service.

   Posted by Tymbrimi at 06/16/2005 @ 11:33am

2. The RepubliCONs are Finally reaping what they have sown. Reality is jumping up and biting them, HARD, and it's about time!

   Posted by boiler_92 at 06/16/2005 @ 12:41pm

3. The draft would obviously be political suicide for the Bush Administration. Unless...

   unless there's another 9/11-scale terrorist attack (which is ever more likely because of Bush's blatantly imperialist foreign policy). Then they'd have license do whatever they want for another few years: more reactionary domestic policies, more imperialist wars, more infringements on our constitutionally protected civil liberties, the works. And they might not even need the draft then because they'd be able to whip the public into another patriotic fervor and more young fodder would sign up willingly.

   And there's also the increasingly likely possibility of another Great Depression-scale economic collapse. The twin deficits of budget and trade make our economy extremely vulnerable. The asian central banks could dump our dollars. We'd raise interest rates. People's adjustable mortgage payments would rise. The housing bubble would pop. Consumer spending would drop. etc. In such economic devastation would we choose the way of the New Deal or Nazi Germany?

   Posted by hairjello at 06/16/2005 @ 12:42pm

4. The current recruiting crisis is the best thing that could have happened for America. Bush and his war(chicken)hawks cannot lie its way into and commit us to unnecessary wars if they lack the manpower. I staunchly believe that as long as Bush is the commander in chief and willing, at the drop of a hat, to preemptively provoke NEVER ENDING, ETERNAL WARFARE, we will never solve this recruiting crisis. As a Vietnam vet, I am one of those parents that now counsels every youth that will listen to refuse to support the illegal wars of a barbaric administration.

   Posted by Bill Arnett at 06/16/2005 @ 1:02pm

5. All readers: please check out votetoimpeach.org

   Our country is in dire straits here - ethically and politically - thanks to our current administration. Something must be done - now!

   Posted by Daniel Rubin at 06/16/2005 @ 1:27pm

6. There is an exit strategy for Iraq: victory. Liberals seek, desire for America, and democracy, to fail.

   Posted by Tymbrimi at 06/16/2005 @ 2:20pm

7. I am against the draft. I am a child of the 60's and saw the horrible war every night on TV, watched my brother and friends drafted to unhealthy places like Vietnam. Some never came back. And it lasted for 10-11 years. The volunteer army will naturally keep the war years down because of the lack of recruits. Also, since the rich are getting richer thru multiple tax cuts they pay no price; no sacrifices made. The families of the military are the people paying the sacrifices now in blood and later they will pay the taxes due to the biblical numbers our deficit is aspiring to, thanks to BUSH/CHENEY and all their goose-stepping, brown-shirted republicans.

   Posted by Somedaysoon at 06/16/2005 @ 2:25pm

8. First it would be a medical skills draft, congressmen would vote for that because nobody is going to say that wounded troops should not have doctors. But it would be expandable, and congressmen would not have to vote when it came time to expand that to include mechanics. Finally it would be expanded to include cannon fodder, and congressmen outside of right wing districts could say they never expected the medical skills draft to be expanded.

   Posted by reidsucks at 06/16/2005 @ 3:56pm

9. There is no need for a draft

   There is still plenty of young cannon fodder left in this country. To convince them to join the military we merely need to tie ALL federal student financial aid to military service. We are moving in that direction already. Second, we should also tie legal immigration from Mexico to military service. This is already being done but we need to do a better job of intercepting "recruits" at the border. Ain't America great!

   Posted by redstater at 06/16/2005 @ 4:33pm

10. There was a New York Times op-ed a couple of weeks ago where the writer proposed all sorts of radical solutions for boosting recruitment, including limiting the right to vote to those who serve! But the "d-word" never came up. "There will not be a draft," W. in the 2004 debate, remember"read my lips no new taxes?" Like father.. radtex

    Posted by DSmit at 06/16/2005 @ 10:39pm

11. Having served for eighteen months in the Nixon-Kissiner Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-1972), I naturally agree with any and all Americans (not to mention interested foreigners) who oppose any resumption of military conscription, i.e., a DRAFT, in America. The American War against the Vietnamese in Vietnam would have come to an end much sooner -- perhaps it would never have even gotten started -- if America had suitably demobilized its unnecessary military behemoth after WWII. Certainly, by the end of the Eisenhower administration (1960) the warning signs of incipient imperial militarism had become obvious -- certainly to President and former Army General Dwight David Eisenhower.

    Now the American War against the Iraqi people in Iraq appears headed for a quick termination (planned or panicked -- take your choice) because Americans don't want to pay for it or die in it. Good reasons. Americans should stick to them. America had no crisis in military manpower BEFORE President Bush launched his ill-advised, personal vendetta war in Iraq. America will have no crisis in military manpower AFTER CONCLUDING President Bush's ill-advised personal vendetta war in Iraq. Note the common factor in the so-called military manpower "crisis," namely, a personal, presidential (no Congresssional declaration) war that Americans don't need and don't want to fight. Conclude the needless war and the so-called "manpower crisis" goes away.

    Why hasn't this stupid, bloody, trumped-up war ended already? Because the American regime (all three branches, both major political parties) doesn't want to face the consequences of peace. That would mean assessing the costs versus "benefits" of waging this stupid, bloody bungle. Then, when the negligible "benefits" compare unfavorably to the monstrous costs, holding those accountable (all three branches, both major political parties) will take place. The regime doesn't want to face this accounting for its monumental blunder, so in bureaucratic self defense it will close ranks and insist on continuing the war, for no other reason than to postpone -- perhaps indefinitely -- the predictable national understanding: namely, that the nation has no need for the unnecessary wars it fights and even less need for the bungling American regimes that keep wanting to fight them.

    Americans shouldn't -- and apparently don't -- want a Draft because they can now begin to glimpse the never-ending imperial-presidential wars that conscription makes inevitable. Foreigners naturally don't want to see America with more deployable troops because they know America will deploy those troops abroad (have gun, will shoot it) to destabilize and destroy their countries. How many foreign countries that never attacked America would want to contemplate America doing to them what it has done to Iraq for not attacking America? None, of course.

    America doesn't have too few soldiers; it has too many wars. End the wars and the American regimes that sponsor them, and then America will have more than enough soldiers to defend America. Who knows? Perhaps the next time 19 unarmed men decide to attack America by borrowing some American commercial aircraft to use as weapons, someone in America's hugely bloated and monumentally irrelevant military-industrial complex will step up and stop them. Perhaps. Not likely, but perhaps.

    We have more troops and weapons than we can possibly use. We don't have political and/or military leaders capable of using them reluctantly and wisely. We have so many weapons and dreams of weapons that we can't even count or keep track of them anymore, let alone the account for the billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars that just seem to vanish every year down the military-industrial-politico-media toilet without a trace. We need to downsize the American regime -- all three branches and both major political parties. We have to flush the regime and cleanse it of its endemic corruption. It has proven worse than useless and only seems to cause trouble whenever it meets in secret to rob us and send our children off to die in some desert or jungle far over the horizon.

    President Bush's war in Iraq has to end; then war-without-end itself has to end; then the political careers of everyone in the regime who started or enabled this war in Iraq have to end. America needs to demonstrate conclusively, to itself and the world, that it knows how to conclude bad things and fire the bad people who start them. After that, perhaps America can become great again. Not likely, but perhaps.

    Posted by mrmurry at 06/17/2005 @ 02:14am

12. The military's new "incentives" aptly illustrate what the US armed forces have become since the end of the cold war: Mercenaries. Killers for hire. Ready on short notice to invade and occupy. The militarists have been using bribes like bonuses and college tuition for years to lure mostly low-income men and women into a brain-washing scheme rivaled only by organized religion. Once they get a hold on you it's hard to break free. Still, some of the blame must be born by the mercenaries themselves. By blindly following the illegal, immoral orders to destroy the legitimate regime (by international accord) in Iraq and brutalize its peoples, every soldier, sailor and airman is guilty of war crimes. It is little wonder the stakes must be raised - $20,000 sounds more like hit money than an "enlistment bonus" - to keep the barracks loaded with cannon fodder for the next "hot spot" our corporate masters dictate.

    Posted by McGuire57 at 06/17/2005 @ 07:14am

13. I am reminded of a quote by the great Bill Hicks regarding the first war in Iraq: "I was in the unique position of being FOR THE WAR but against the troops". How true.

    In all seriousness, all these knee-jerk liberal reactions to qualifying any critical statements about the war with "well of course, I want to support the troops but..." just need to go. It comes down to simple logic: if a war is morally wrong, results in the deaths of tens of thousands of people who did absolutely nothing to harm our country, comes on the heels of sanctions responsible for crippling and starving an entire country, and is based on bogus falsehoods and lies, THEREFORE it is morally wrong to participate in the fighting of such a war.

    The troops aren't heroes. They aren't necessarily evil people at heart, but they aren't heroes. It obviously takes a lot of balls to go into combat and courage to protect your friends in the heat of battle, but to what ends? What good are courage and temerity when they are being directed towards the brutal occupation of another country?

    Posted by MikeRM at 06/17/2005 @ 10:42am

14. Why not a draft? It will be good for people from all corners of our society to share the burden and pain. This will bring more pressure to bear on our elected officials to make wise decisions about waging war. With a draft, future administrations that make the decision to wage war out of hubris will be tossed out in the next election.

    Posted by hollowr at 06/17/2005 @ 10:43am

15. Mr Murry is right: more troops equals more wars. Don't know why that point isn't obvious to everyone in Washington. I strongly encourage everyone to read the Washington Monthly article cited at the end of my post.

    Posted by Ari Berman at 06/17/2005 @ 10:49am

16. Seems to me all hawks everywhere should be enlisting and/or encouraging their children to enlist, since they so firmly believe pre-emptive war is such a crucial policy for the safety of our nation. Plus it's God's will, or so they say.

    Posted by pwhallmark at 06/17/2005 @ 10:49am

17. One alternative to the draft is to stir the sense of civic pride and patriotic duty in all Americans, especially the parents of young adults. The parents will then convince their teenage kids to join the military to defend America and our freedom. (This last sentence is intended as a joke - I have two teenagers)

    President W. can lead by example, and convince his children to enlist in the army.

    Posted by hollowr at 06/17/2005 @ 10:57am

18. TOON OF THE DAY: Iraqi Exit Strategy [jjoats.blogspot.com]

    Posted by jjoats at 06/17/2005 @ 11:53am

19. Yeah, why aren't Barbara and Jenna filling any of those empty boots? It's harder to convince young people these days to go to the desert and die.

    If anyone knows a young person in the delayed entry program, let them know they are not legally obligated to go to Parris Island/boot camp just yet. This site literally saved my life back in 2000. I got out of the delayed entry program [objector.org] without a hitch.

    Posted by miriamcamp at 06/17/2005 @ 2:48pm

20. The polls cited are irrelevant. The "people" don't make these decisions, our political leaders do. :)

    Posted by Tymbrimi at 06/17/2005 @ 9:35pm