QandO

July 20, 2004

Draft? Expand the Volunteer Force instead
Posted by McQ

The "fairness" police seem to feel there's too much "burden" being imposed on the poor in this country (not to mention a lack of diversity) when it comes to military service in the War on Terror.

The obvious answer, at least to them, is to reinstate the draft. Somehow it is eminently more fair to randomly disrupt the lives of all citizens rather than allowing those who choose to serve to do so. For the life of me, I've never been able to follow that line of reasoning.

Nathaniel Fick, a former Marine Captain, makes the case that instituting the draft would, in effect, "dumb down" the military as well as making it less effective. You see the military is already much more selective of the candidates it takes than any draft would ever be. And it is the intelligence and the motivation (the desire to excel) of these soldiers which has helped make our military so formidable. He also neatly destroys the "diversity" myth in his article.

In Iraq, I commanded a reconnaissance platoon, the Marines' special operations force. Many of my enlisted marines were college-educated; some had been to graduate school. All had volunteered once for the Marines, again for the infantry, and a third time for recon. They were proud to serve as part of an elite unit. Like most demanding professionals, they were their own harshest critics, intolerant of their peers whose performance fell short.

The dumb grunt is an anachronism. He has been replaced by the strategic corporal. Immense firepower and improved technology have pushed decision-making with national consequences down to individual enlisted men. Modern warfare requires that even the most junior infantryman master a wide array of technical and tactical skills.

Honing these skills to reflex, a prerequisite for survival in combat, takes time - a year of formal training and another year of on-the-job experience were generally needed to transform my young marines into competent warriors. The Marine Corps demands four-year active enlistments because it takes that long to train troops and ensure those training dollars are put to use in the field. One- or two-year terms, the longest that would be likely under conscription, would simply not allow for this comprehensive training.

You don't make a competent soldier in a year or even two years. He learns his trade in those two years and becomes competent in the third and fourth. But again I want to emphasize the most important part ... volunteers want to be the best they can be. Its no different than choosing your field of work in the civilian world and trying to excel. They work toward this competence with a fervor shared by those in any line of endeavor where the work is chosen and not forced. It is as important to them to be viewed by their peers as an equal when it comes to ability and expertice as it is to any young college grad starting his first job.

Not so with draftees. Flick has had the pleasure of dealing only with volunteers in his time in the service. I had the experience of commanding both draftees and volunteers. I was an infantry platoon leader during the draft. I was also an infantry company commander as the volunteer force began. The difference, put succinctly, is like night and day.

I'd never, ever want a draft military again.

While most draftees did their duty, there were a percentage which were constant discipline and motivation problems. And competence? Competence was something they just didn't care about one whit. Frankly, they were not worth the dissention they brought to the force or the danger they posed to their comrades.

And while draft supporters insist we have learned the lessons of Vietnam and can create a fair system this time around, even an equitable draft would lower the standards for enlistees. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was chastised for saying Vietnam-era draftees added no value to the armed forces. But his error was semantic; the statement was true of the system, if not of the patriotic and capable individuals who served.

The current volunteer force rejects applicants who score poorly on its entrance aptitude exam, disclose a history of significant drug use or suffer from any of a number of orthopedic or chronic injuries. Face it: any unwilling draftee could easily find a way to fail any of these tests. The military, then, would be left either to abandon its standards and accept all comers, or to remain true to them and allow the draft to become volunteerism by another name. Stripped of its volunteer ideology, but still unable to compel service from dissenters, the military would end up weaker and less representative than the volunteer force - the very opposite of the draft's intended goals.

Standards are high and the ability and efficiency of our military reflect the impact of those standards. We shouldn't change standards and rules which have made us this successful just to be "fair". It doesn't make sense. If we feel we don't have enough in the military to do the job, then we should expand what works ... not scrap it and replace it with something which was detrimental to our Armed Forces the last time we tried it. If we need more in the military, then expand the volunteer military to meet those requirements. But the draft, as Fick states, and I agree, is a bad, bad idea.

And while draft supporters insist we have learned the lessons of Vietnam and can create a fair system this time around, even an equitable draft would lower the standards for enlistees. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was chastised for saying Vietnam-era draftees added no value to the armed forces. But his error was semantic; the statement was true of the system, if not of the patriotic and capable individuals who served.

The current volunteer force rejects applicants who score poorly on its entrance aptitude exam, disclose a history of significant drug use or suffer from any of a number of orthopedic or chronic injuries. Face it: any unwilling draftee could easily find a way to fail any of these tests. The military, then, would be left either to abandon its standards and accept all comers, or to remain true to them and allow the draft to become volunteerism by another name. Stripped of its volunteer ideology, but still unable to compel service from dissenters, the military would end up weaker and less representative than the volunteer force - the very opposite of the draft's intended goals.

While Rumsfeld may have been politically incorrect in his assertion, in my experience, draftees overall were mostly a detriment to the force in general. And with them came draft resisters, draft protests, and finally a seeming hate for the military in general (which was acted out toward individual soldiers during that era) were the result of this misguided policy. I don't want to see it repeated.

Renewing the draft would be a blow against the men and women in uniform, a dumbing down of the institution they serve. The United States military exists to win battles, not to test social policy. Enlarging the volunteer force would show our soldiers that Americans recognize their hardship and are willing to pay the bill to help them better protect the nation.

Amen. When you have the best, don't mess with it. Make it better if you can, and support it with all you have. But please, please, please, save us and our military from the misguided nonsense of the "fairness" police and the draft.

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