I came into the United States armed forces after the draft had ended. I still had to register with the Selective Service, but there was no call-up, nor any talk of one. When I joined up, like all of my contemporaries in that summer of 1984, I was a volunteer. In fact, it was presumably in those years that drill sergeants started a classic line that I've heard repeated time and again, where an NCO walks over to a group of soldiers, and snaps, "I need three volunteers - you, you, and you." When, inevitably, a young, naive troop complained that he didn't volunteer, the drill sergeant snapped at him, "Were you drafted? No? Then you volunteered."
Many of the senior NCOs and officers were Vietnam veterans, and many of them told us how much better things were then, a scarce ten years after our people pulled out of Vietnam; I remember our crusty old First Sergeant in Basic Training, who wore a 101st Airborne patch on his right sleeve, telling us, "You are all here because you want to be. That's a whole lot better than a bunch of knuckleheads who were drafted and would rather be anywhere else."
So, for that and many other reasons, when I see the idea of a new draft being kicked around, as is the case today while Operation Epic Fury is ongoing, I can only see that as a bad idea.
On Sunday, Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about the possibility that a ground war in Iran might lead to activation of a U.S. military draft.
“Mothers out there are worried that we’re going to have a draft, that they’re going to see their sons and daughters get involved in this,” Bartiromo asked. “What do you want to say about the President’s plans for troops on the ground?”
Leavitt didn’t mention the draft specifically in her response, but said repeatedly that no option had been ruled out. Presumably those “options” included the draft, which was the focus of the question.
“President Trump wisely does not remove options off of the table,” Leavitt said. “It’s not part of the current plan right now, but the president, again, wisely keeps his options on the table.”
Here's where this article goes wrong; later on, it calls for the elimination of the Selective Service system. That's a bad idea. Institute a draft today? No. Remove the option from the table? Also no. Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future, so we should leave Selective Service in place; in fact, if we're going to have it, let's expand it and make women sign up as well. Equal protection under the law, and all that. But a draft? Now? That would cause more problems than it would solve.
First, right now, our service members, and we should be grateful for every single one of them, are there because they chose to be. For one reason or another, whatever that personal reason was, they decided to join the armed services. They have been trained in the profession of arms because they chose it. Many of us old enough to remember the Vietnam years and the anti-war protests that shook the nation remember that this was, in part, because young men were yanked out of their homes and sent into the fight, which, one must admit, was not as immediate a threat as Germany and Japan in 1941.
Second, we are a nation founded on the notion of individual liberty, and that should only be curtailed in the event of a clear and present, immediate threat. The idea of impressing young men - because that's what the draft is - is anathema to that notion. Voluntary service, as noted, gives our armed forces young people who are motivated, because they chose the life.
Third, this isn't the Great War or World War 2. Our military's success or failure is no longer just a factor of how many boots we can put on the ground. Our technological advantages over, well, every other nation, give us a huge force multiplier, which we are seeing demonstrated in the skies over Iran, right now.
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Fourth, in our era of this same high-technology, our modern military requires a fair amount of training to make soldiers proficient; a two-year conscription isn’t really enough time to produce a troop that is technically and tactically proficient. A three-year enlistment barely does that.
So, a draft, now? No. But retaining the Selective Service? Yes. We are dicing with the future if we don't retain the option, and the Selective Service, should it become necessary, lays the groundwork for a quick and efficient call-up of men, and yes, women, to serve the nation in dire circumstances - the only circumstances in which this tool should come out of the drawer. President Trump is correct to keep the draft as an option, but this isn't the time to do it.
