Does McCain Want the Draft?
Yesterday, an emotional woman stood up in Senator John McCain’s Town Hall in Las Cruses, New Mexico. She had a long rambling statement that ended with the suggestion that we will have to reinstate the draft if we are going to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell. McCain thanked the woman for her answer and then said that he didn’t disagree with anything that the woman said.
I don’t know if McCain heard all of the question or perhaps he zoned out. A draft? I think that a draft is necessary if are going to continue our occupation of Iraq and possibly invade or fight another county. We need more soldiers. On the other hand, this could be somewhat disastrous to McCain. A draft? I suspect that the McCain will have a statement out early in the morning re-stating what the Senator “meant” to say.
In October 2006, pre-surge, in an interview with Chris Matthews, John McCain said:
“I don‘t think we need to think of the draft again because I don‘t think it makes sense in a whole variety of ways. But I guarantee you, if these young people felt that this nation was in a crisis and we asked them to serve, virtually every one of them would stand up because I have the greatest confidence in the young people of America.”
As a military man, he certainly can appreciate the makeup of our current armed forces, since they are the best trained and most educated military force that the US has ever mustered, precisely because it is an all volunteer force.
While I hesitate to put words in his mouth, I sincerely doubt he is interested in instituting a draft.
As far as that meeting went, have you ever watched them? After the first five minutes, EVERYONE seems to sound like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon.
Chris -
I mostly agree with you. Best equiped and best trained, I have my doubts. No uparmored vehicles doesn’t sound like the best equiped and no counter-insurgency training doesn’t really sound like the best trained but that is the line that we keep feeding ourselves.
thanks for your comments. I appreciate them.
It is unfortunate what is becoming of the US Army. I don’t know about the other services. But the army used to have a zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol abuses. Not anymore. Now they don’t kick them out and have had to lower the standards to allow convicted felons in and they don’t kick out the drug users or the alcoholics. Which has deterred many to stay no matter how much money they throw at them. They kept putting druggies in with my son in the barracks. Hoping his strict standards would influence them to straighten up. If we don’t get out of Iraq and start setting standards again. It will slip back to the way it was in the 60’s. The good people don’t stay in. The pentagon only counts numbers of enlisted not the quality of the people that serve. There has to be away to encourage people to join and right now there isn’t one. The new GI bill will help.
Doc:
From the Heritage Foundation:
“American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted personnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18–24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelor’s degree.”
Further, also from Heritage.org (this has nothing to do with my post or your response, I just found it interesting):
“U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officers who do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous Heritage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demonstrates that the same is true of the officer corps.
…
Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 percent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods—a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.
…
Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service. Enlisted troops are somewhat more likely to be white or black than their non-military peers. Whites are proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are overrepresented, but their rate of overrepresentation has declined each year from 2004 to 2007. New recruits are also disproportionately likely to come from the South, which is in line with the history of Southern military tradition.”
I don’t know Margaret, but I am sure she is not portraying the people who fight for her freedom every day as alcoholics, drug users, and felons. At any rate, this new information seems to dispute her claims that alcoholics, drug users, and felons are overrepresented in todays Armed Forces.
Chris -
Education doesn’t necessarily equal training. I’m talking about military training. The Heritage Foundation is very clever about using stats. They have mixed enlisted and officer stats but that’s okay for this discussion.
You mentioned best trained. It is clear that our soldiers were not trained for a counterinsurgency. They were trained for a conventional war which many military experts predicted we would not see in Iraq. Then again, we don’t need military experts in order to figure this out. You and I both know that the Iraqis would not be able to stand toe to toe with the US military. So, what strategy would you employ?
Finally, I think that Margaret is correct that the military has changed its standards. We have let in felons which was never allow before.
thanks again for your comments.
Chris,
I am stating what my son saw while he was stationed with the 1st Calvary. What he personally experienced from 2001 to 2006. The put crack heads in his room and when he question why he was still in the army, He was told because they have a quota.
The training is nothing compared to what they will need unless they have changed in the last 5 years. My son was trained on communication systems that were so outdated that they didn’t know how to fix them anymore.
The alcoholism has gotten really bad. Why have they dropped the zero tolerance program….
My son saw how it was going and was very dishearten.They had built up the image of the military since Vietnam and worked hard at cleaning it up. I am just saying what it has become since Iraq. They have a hard time keeping the educated officers in the service.
Unless they get rid of the stoploss program and give the people more time home. I don’t see it as improving.
They have to go back to zero tolerance or it will slip back to the way it was perceived in the 60’s
Margaret:
I cannot disprove your anecdotal evidence, and won’t attempt to. I will say, however, that I doubt there is a quota for “alcoholics” and “drug addicts”, or whatever your son says he saw.
Even if there is a military “quota” for personnel, I doubt anyone would have told your son that there was. That’s just silly.
Like I said, however, this doesn’t mean that your son has intentionally misled anyone, just that I am skeptical of his claims.
Doc:
I relish the opportunity to civilly converse with someone from the other side of the aisle. I think you’d be surprised at the animosity my opinions generate amongst those left of center.
At any rate, no thank you’s are needed: I only desire more intelligent discourse!
To get back on point:
Frankly, I mentioned best trained “that the US Military has ever mustered”. That means that we now have the best trained force that we’ve ever had.
I don’t think you’re suggesting that our current armed forces aren’t as well trained as they were during, say, the Korean War. The advances in technology available alone prove my point for me. Are you making a subjective observation on how well trained our guys are for a given war?
I’m reciting from memory, so please take this with a grain of salt: I believe that the conventional vs. insurgency training changeover happened somewhere in early 2000s, almost concurrent with September 11. That being said, it’s an entirely new type of warfare, urban/desert settings, etc.
I guess here I’d have to ask what your expectation is. What is acceptable training? Sure, I’ll concede that it may have been possible to train better, but to measure HOW better, you’d have to define some sort of parameters for training.
What do you think could have been done better?
Margaret:
I do have to say that I am in favor of no tolerance programs for substance abuse in the US Military, so we at least agree on that.