thedrifter
08-27-06, 07:31 AM
Published August 27, 2006
Military made up of weary volunteers
Scott Canon and Rick Montgomery
McClatchy Newspapers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - This was the plan in 1973: Dump the draft. Count on volunteers. When something big comes up, rely on the reserves and National Guard.
A special commission had told Richard Nixon the country could suffice with a smaller all-volunteer, active-duty military unless something really big came up.
Only in the case of a long-term, large-scale foreign deployment - define that as more than six months and 100,000 troops - would there be any need to bother with a draft again.
Now three-plus years since tanks rumbled into Baghdad, with more than 150,000 U.S. troops deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan, the Pentagon is making do with thinly stretched volunteers.
Most recently, the Marine Corps announced the involuntary call-up of 2,500 troops in the individual ready reserves - people clearly obligated to fight if called but also expecting that their days in uniform were behind them.
"Up until now the Marines were able to recruit plenty of people and get them to come back just by asking. They're the most gung ho of all the services," said Lawrence Korb, who specialized in manpower issues as an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. "The fact that they're forcing some Marines back into service is indicative of how military and former military people feel about this war."
In a word, tired.
Already, the Marines had called some 5,000 troops voluntarily back into service. The Army has called back 5,000 soldiers from the ready reserves, most of them involuntarily, since Sept. 11, 2001.In addition, so-called "stop loss" policies that protect the Army from losing people in high-
demand specialties are freezing more than 10,000 soldiers in the service involuntarily and indefinitely. At times during the Iraq war, that number has risen to nearly 14,000.
Korb and others refer to it as a "back-door draft" - a means of putting enough boots on the ground without having to impose conscription on the general military-age population.
Nor are recruitment targets being increased to account for the 500 or so troops lost to battlefield deaths and injuries every month, he said.
"We can't put in that factor because it would be too hot politically," he said of the casualties. "It's like the draft."
While a few lonely voices call for a draft to spread the burden of military service and to force a national referendum on the occupation of Iraq, conventional wisdom in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill holds that such ideas will go nowhere.
Ellie
Military made up of weary volunteers
Scott Canon and Rick Montgomery
McClatchy Newspapers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - This was the plan in 1973: Dump the draft. Count on volunteers. When something big comes up, rely on the reserves and National Guard.
A special commission had told Richard Nixon the country could suffice with a smaller all-volunteer, active-duty military unless something really big came up.
Only in the case of a long-term, large-scale foreign deployment - define that as more than six months and 100,000 troops - would there be any need to bother with a draft again.
Now three-plus years since tanks rumbled into Baghdad, with more than 150,000 U.S. troops deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan, the Pentagon is making do with thinly stretched volunteers.
Most recently, the Marine Corps announced the involuntary call-up of 2,500 troops in the individual ready reserves - people clearly obligated to fight if called but also expecting that their days in uniform were behind them.
"Up until now the Marines were able to recruit plenty of people and get them to come back just by asking. They're the most gung ho of all the services," said Lawrence Korb, who specialized in manpower issues as an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. "The fact that they're forcing some Marines back into service is indicative of how military and former military people feel about this war."
In a word, tired.
Already, the Marines had called some 5,000 troops voluntarily back into service. The Army has called back 5,000 soldiers from the ready reserves, most of them involuntarily, since Sept. 11, 2001.In addition, so-called "stop loss" policies that protect the Army from losing people in high-
demand specialties are freezing more than 10,000 soldiers in the service involuntarily and indefinitely. At times during the Iraq war, that number has risen to nearly 14,000.
Korb and others refer to it as a "back-door draft" - a means of putting enough boots on the ground without having to impose conscription on the general military-age population.
Nor are recruitment targets being increased to account for the 500 or so troops lost to battlefield deaths and injuries every month, he said.
"We can't put in that factor because it would be too hot politically," he said of the casualties. "It's like the draft."
While a few lonely voices call for a draft to spread the burden of military service and to force a national referendum on the occupation of Iraq, conventional wisdom in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill holds that such ideas will go nowhere.
Ellie