Mandatory military service C or D, or...

I think we would make more sane decisions about where to send our troops if there were more rich boys in the infantry, and if girls were included as well.

I'm pretty much anti-slavery all the way around.

we'd have about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 more homes for poor people and aqueducts in 3rd-world countries and good stuff like that PLUS all that character-building crap

Bush could have pushed thru a requirement like this in the wake of Sep 11 and no-one would have batted an eye

Oh like in the Vietnam era, when Dubya passed others on a waitlist to get into the Texas Air National Guard, then disappeared for a year?

Yes there have been a few in the "higher classes" that go to war, but in general I think it's way more the case that the rich evade service of any kind. That's why they called 'em the Draft Riots, back in the Civil War days....

2. Conscripts and draftees are fucking terrible soldiers by and large. They desert, go AWOL, break rules and don't care about doing the job right. Not to say we don't have more than enough jackasses in the military as is, but not nearly as many as if we started making everybody do 16-24 months of service. I don't even like to think about it. Conscripts are the guys shooting children in the Gaza Strip because they've been poorly trained and then sent to spend a bunch of time being ridiculously bored in "hostile" territory.

3. Starship Troopers.

The long-term payoff to the country's infrastructure would be ENORMOUS, not to mention those of other far-flung countries that projects would be happening in.

"ask not what your country can do for you," etc; although that ain't really gwb's philosophy is it

The funny thing is if I was given the choice that Tracer laid forth I'd join the damn Army. This is possibly unsurprising.

"The nation is at this time in a state of Revolution, North, South, East, and West," wrote the Washington Times during the often violent protests that occurred after Abraham Lincoln issued the March 3, 1863, Enrollment Act of Conscription. Although demonstrations took place in many Northern cities, the riots that broke out in New York City were both the most violent and the most publicized.
With a large and powerful Democratic party operating in the city, a dramatic show of dissent had been long in the making. The state's popular governor, Democrat Horatio Seymour, openly despised Lincoln and his policies. In addition, the Enrollment Act shocked a population already tired of the two-year-old war.
By the time the names of the first draftees were drawn in New York City on July 11, reports about the carnage of Gettysburg had been published in city papers. Lincoln's call for 300,000 more young men to fight a seemingly endless war frightened even those who supported the Union cause. Moreover, the Enrollment Act contained several exemptions, including the payment of a "commutation fee" that allowed wealthier and more influential citizens to buy their way out of service.
Perhaps no group was more resentful of these inequities than the Irish immigrants populating the slums of northeastern cities. Poor and more than a little prejudiced against blacks-with whom they were both unfamiliar and forced to compete for the lowest-paying jobs-the Irish in New York objected to fighting on their behalf.
On Sunday, June 12, the names of the draftees drawn the day before by the Provost Marshall were published in newspapers. Within hours, groups of irate citizens, many of them Irish immigrants, banded together across the city. Eventually numbering some 50,000 people, the mob terrorized neighborhoods on the East Side of New York for three days looting scores of stores. Blacks were the targets of most attacks on citizens; several lynchings and beatings occurred. In addition, a black church and orphanage were burned to the ground.
All in all, the mob caused more than $1.5 million of damage. The number killed or wounded during the riot is unknown, but estimates range from two dozen to nearly 100. Eventually, Lincoln deployed combat troops from the Federal Army of the Potomac to restore order; they remained encamped around the city for several weeks. In the end, the draft raised only about 150,000 troops throughout the North, about three-quarters of them substitutes, amounting to just one-fifth of the total Union force.

Drafts used as a way to drive a wedge between different ethnicities that have poverty in common - BIG DUD.

Requires me, first, to buy into the "taxes are theft!!!" fallacy.

And second, requires that this be confined solely to "labour." It's not. Military service and "civilian alternatives" aren't a 9-5 community service effort. They are your life.

Rich kid in the infantry = the guy with no friends in his own platoon.

And conscript armies are great as long as your troops are motivated (Napolean conquered most of europe with one).

Also, people would be highly unlikely to stick around and make a career out of it, at least in the proportions necessary to generate a sufficient supervisory corps. All indians and no chiefs.

Third, do these kids get free medical and dental too? If it's civil service, what are the entry requirements for physical and mental health? I mean even the severely handicapped should have something to offer, right?

These are all problems the military doesn't have because 1. it IS voluntary 2. it DOES discriminate. A national civil service program would have a lot more trouble with these issues. A lot.

But what's your argument here, slavery's OK, if it's only for a year?

I think if the idea is to make JUST the military compulsory but no public service then I'm behind it 100% because Tom thinks it may degrade our ability to invade and occupy every other country on earth effectively PLUS it will turn America into what it's been angling to be for years now: a giant police force with the power to raise taxes! Everybody wins! Shit, where'd my gray paint go.

(xpost w Tom)

the other problem is: why tie it solely to college?

Funny, did you notice that sentence that was italicized?

Yeah, that was the statement, and the person, that I was responding to.

Crazy, huh.

But what, exactly, isn't "slavery" about forcing me (with a gun to my back) to devote my life to a military cause (or a civilian alternative) - and possibly my death - that I don't wish to take part in?

You want to make it easier/better for people to volunteer for something like this? Great.
You want to give some great incentives for a year of military service/social service - free education, for instance? Great.

But when you start talking about making it mandatory, forcing people to do something or else go to jail, that's enslavement.

But at the same time, it serves to erase some inequality. If I could volunteer for a year with a group, all bills paid, and get a free college education from any public institute, I'd sign up in a heart beat. It would be an easy opportunity for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to go to university (or tech school, or whatever), to do so, without coming out after 4 years beaten down by debt.

Slavery is when a private individual owns another individual.

The government expects people to do certain things - this is not slavery. If you get a speeding ticket and have to show up to court, is it "slavery" that the government makes you show up in court?

OK, not at all.

The government expects people to do certain things - this is not slavery. If you get a speeding ticket and have to show up to court, is it "slavery" that the government makes you show up in court?
In what way is a traffic ticket and a court date analgous to the draft?

(Hint: they aren't)

Hint: its the government making you do somethign against your will.

F*ck conscription. It's a total DUD. It's morally wrong. I could see the rationale if the country was in obvious (um, like in an invasion) but beyond that, conscription strikes me as instrument of a political war and little else. What the government should do is what it has done on a very minor level: make it valuable to serve the country.

And f*ck all mandatory "service" or "work" that the government comes up with. The last thing I need in my life are goons like the US Congress coming up with creative ideas (read: inefficient, expensive boondoggles designed to win reelection) to keep me busy in hopes of indoctrinating me on some vacuous social cause.

Tracer, tell us about the taxation rates of those cool democratic countries with mandatory service. I bet Americans would LOVE to pony up as much as the Germans do so we can have the privilege of painting murals over graffiti tags after graduating high school.

I'm not suggesting that any pol could win on a public service platform. In fact, that sort of misses the point entirely.

The point is that the imperialist federal government is inherently political because it is overseen by political appointments. Ergo, if something as obnoxious as AmeriCorps ever had a mandatory service requirement for US citizens, "participants" would be at the behest of political patronage. (And if we're going to even wonder about the constitutionality of conscription, can we please ruminate on the constitutionality of the federally funded Americorps, too?) I'm just not ready for guys like John Ashcroft or Hillary Clinton or Trent Lott to indoctrinate young adults with projects they deem politically palatable.

This issue has nothing to do with being selfish or not wanting to serve the country. It has everything to do with being a political stooge, a pawn in a system designed to relieve the freedom of all in favor of the few who will then use it to attain or sustain political power.

"Tracer, tell us about the taxation rates of those cool democratic countries with mandatory service. I bet Americans would LOVE to pony up as much as the Germans do so we can have the privilege of painting murals over graffiti tags after graduating high school."

I would love to pay higher taxes to see fat fuck Americans be forced to get up and do some damn work. American taxes are too low as it.

In that it's not entirely mandatory, I can be excused without alternate service, and at most I'm serving a day or two (with rare exceptions), no.

Oiling up the draft machine?
The Pentagon is quietly moving to fill draft board vacancies nationwide. While officials say there's no cause to worry, some experts aren't so sure.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Dave Lindorff

Nov. 3, 2003 | The community draft boards that became notorious for sending reluctant young men off to Vietnam have languished since the early 1970s, their membership ebbing and their purpose all but lost when the draft was ended. But a few weeks ago, on an obscure federal Web site devoted to the war on terrorism, the Bush administration quietly began a public campaign to bring the draft boards back to life.

"Serve Your Community and the Nation," the announcement urges. "If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men ... receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service."

Local draft board volunteers, meanwhile, report that at training sessions last summer, they were unexpectedly asked to recommend people to fill some of the estimated 16 percent of board seats that are vacant nationwide.

Especially for those who were of age to fight in the Vietnam War, it is an ominous flashback of a message. Divisive military actions are ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. News accounts daily detail how the U.S. is stretched too thin there to be effective. And tensions are high with Syria and Iran and on the Korean Peninsula, with some in or close to the Bush White House suggesting that military action may someday be necessary in those spots, too.

Not since the early days of the Reagan administration in 1981 has the Defense Department made a push to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots. Recognizing that even the mention of a draft in the months before an election might be politically explosive, the Pentagon last week was adamant that the drive to staff up the draft boards is not a portent of things to come. There is "no contingency plan" to ask Congress to reinstate the draft, John Winkler, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for reserve affairs, told Salon last week.

Increasingly, however, military experts and even some influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to consider a draft to fully staff the nation's military in a time of global instability.

"The experts are all saying we're going to have to beef up our presence in Iraq," says U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat. "We've failed to convince our allies to send troops, we've extended deployments so morale is sinking, and the president is saying we can't cut and run. So what's left? The draft is a very sensitive subject, but at some point, we're going to need more troops, and at that point the only way to get them will be a return to the draft."

Rangel has provoked controversy in the past by insisting that a draft is the only way to fill the nation's military needs without exploiting young men and women from lower-income families. And, some suggest, by proposing military service from middle- and upper-class men and women, Rangel may be trying to diminish the odds of actually using them in combat. But Rangel is hardly alone in suggesting that the draft might be needed.

The draft, ended by Congress in 1973 as the Indochina War was winding down, was long a target of antiwar activists, and remains highly controversial both in and out of the military. Most military officers understandably prefer an army of volunteers and career soldiers over an army of grudging conscripts; Rumsfeld, too, has long been a staunch advocate of an all-volunteer force.

According to some experts, basic math might compel the Pentagon to reconsider the draft: Of a total U.S. military force of 1.4 million people around the globe (many of them in non-combat support positions and in services like the Air Force and Navy), there are currently about 140,000 active-duty, reserve and National Guard soldiers currently deployed in Iraq -- and though Rumsfeld has been an advocate of a lean, nimble military apparatus, history suggests he needs more muscle.

"The closest parallel to the Iraq situation is the British in Northern Ireland, where you also had some people supporting the occupying army and some opposing them, and where the opponents were willing to resort to terror tactics," says Charles Peña, director of defense studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "There the British needed a ratio of 10 soldiers per 1,000 population to restore order, and at their height, it was 20 soldiers per 1,000 population. If you transfer that to Iraq, it would mean you'd need at least 240,000 troops and maybe as many as 480,000.

"The only reason you aren't hearing these kinds of numbers discussed by the White House and the Defense Department right now," Peña adds, "is that you couldn't come up with them without a return to the draft, and they don't want to talk about that."

The Pentagon has already had to double the deployment periods of some units, call up more reserves and extend tours of duty by a year -- all highly unpopular moves. Meanwhile, the recent spate of deadly bombings in Baghdad, Falluja and other cities, and increasing attacks on U.S. forces throughout Iraq have forced the U.S. to reconsider its plans to reduce troop deployments.

Those factors -- combined with the stress and grind of war itself -- clearly have diminished troop morale. And many in the National Guard and reserves never anticipated having to serve in an active war zone, far from their families and jobs, for six months or longer. Stars and Stripes, the Army's official paper, reports that a poll it conducted found that half the soldiers in Iraq say they are "not likely" or are "very unlikely" to reenlist -- a very high figure.

Consider that the total enlistment goal for active Army and Army reserves in the fiscal year ended Oct. 1 was 100,000. If half of the 140,000 troops currently in Iraq were to go home and stay, two-thirds of this year's recruits would be needed to replace them. And that does not take into consideration military needs at home and around the globe.

"My sense is that there is a lot of nervousness about the enlistment numbers as Iraq drags on," says Doug Bandow, another military manpower expert at Cato. "We're still early enough into it that the full impact on recruiting/retention hasn't been felt."

Next page | Many '60s-era draft loopholes have already been closed
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Curtis Gilroy, director of accession policy at the Department of Defense, concedes that troop morale is hurting. "There are certainly concerns about future reenlistments. Iraq is not a happy place to be," Gilroy says. "[But] I think a certain amount of that is just grumbling. What we're interested in is not what people are saying, but what they do." So far, he reports, reenlistments and new enlistments remain on target.

Beth Asch, a military manpower expert at the Rand Corp. think tank, agrees that current retention and new enlistment figures are holding up. But she cautions that it may be too soon to know the impact of the tough and open-ended occupation in Iraq. "Short deployments actually boost enlistments and reenlistments," Asch says. "But studies show longer deployments can definitely have a negative impact."

While she thinks it is unlikely that the military will have to resort to a draft to meet its needs, Ned Lebow, a military manpower expert and professor of government at Dartmouth College, is less confident.

"The government is in a bit of a box," Lebow says. "They can hold reservists on active duty longer, and risk antagonizing that whole section of America that has family members who join the Reserves. They can try to pay soldiers more, but it's not clear that works -- and besides, there's already an enormous budget deficit. They can try to bribe other countries to contribute more troops, which they're trying to do now, but not with much success. Or they can try Iraqization of the war -- though we saw what happened to Vietnamization, and Afghanization of the war in Afghanistan isn't working, so Iraqization doesn't seem likely to work either.

"So," Lebow concludes, "that leaves the draft."

Purely in mechanical terms, a draft is a complicated and difficult thing to get off the ground. It would require an act of Congress, first, and then the signature of the president. Young men are already required to register with the Selective Service system, but if the bill were signed into law, it would still take half a year or more to get the new troops into the system. Federal law would require the Selective Service to immediately set up a lottery and start sending out induction notices. Local draft boards would have to evaluate them for medical problems, moral objections and other issues like family crises, and hear the appeals of those who are resisting the draft.

Under law, the first batch of new conscripts must be processed and ready for boot camp in 193 days or less after the start of the draft.

But if the mechanics of the draft are difficult, the politics could be lethal for Bush or any other top official who proposed it.

Already, the American public is almost as split today over the war in Iraq as it was about the war in Indochina nearly four decades ago, though not yet as passionately. But a new draft would likely incite even deeper resentment than it did then. In the last war fought by a conscript army, draft deferments for students meant that nobody who was in college had to worry about being called up until after graduation, and until late in that war, it was even possible, by going to grad school (like Vice President Dick Cheney), to avoid getting drafted altogether. In the Vietnam War era, college boys could also duck combat, as George W. Bush did, by joining the National Guard.

But that's all been changed. In a new draft, college students whose lottery number was selected would only be permitted to finish their current semester; seniors could finish their final year. After that, they'd have to answer the call. Meanwhile, National Guardsmen, as we've seen in the current war, are now likely to face overseas combat duty, too.

"If Congress and Bush reinstitute the draft, it would be the '60s all over again," predicts Lebow. "It's hard to imagine Congress passing such a bill, but then, look how many members of Congress just rolled over and played dead on the bill for $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan."

New York Rep. Rangel and Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., introduced companion bills in the two houses of Congress to reactivate the draft last January, at a time when Bush was clearly moving toward an invasion. While both bills remain in the legislative hopper, neither has gone anywhere.

Even among those who think the public might support a draft, like Bandow at the Cato Institute, few believe Bush would dare to propose it before the November 2004 election. "No one would want that fight," he explains. "It would highlight the cost of an imperial foreign policy, add an incendiary issue to the already emotional protests, and further split the limited-government conservatives." But despite the Pentagon's denials, planners there are almost certainly weighing the numbers just as independent military experts are. And that could explain the willingness to tune up the draft machinery.

John Corcoran, an attorney who serves on a draft board in Philadelphia, says he joined the Reserves to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. Today, he says, the Bush administration "is in deep trouble" in Iraq "because they didn't plan for the occupation." That doesn't mean Bush would take the election-year risk of restarting the draft, Corcoran says. "To tell the truth, I don't think Bush has the balls to call for a draft.

"They give us a training session each year to keep the machinery in place and oiled up in case, God forbid, they ever do reinstitute it," he explains.

"They don't want us to have to do it," agrees Dan Amon, a spokesman for the Selective Service. "But they want us to be ready to do it at the click of a finger."

salon.com

I still have 4 years of inactive reserve commitment remaining, I don't need to hear this shit.

holy crap i think i might be considering the nat'l guard???

i think i have discussed this with T-MB-T on here before, but new shit has come to light

are you trying to get paid while serving as little as one weekend a month and two weeks a year

ie - the national guard will pay me a 2LT salary (approx 2k/mo) AND cover housing (at approx 800/mo) AND, in MN at least, kick in about 75% of my tuition if i give them 8 years...that *INCLUDES* med school AND residency. moreover, guarantees are in place that disallow med students/residents from being called up while still being educated. MOREOVER, if you do something like a surgical residency, you might actually fulfill your service requirements BEFORE finishing your training

wait, no, MN requires two years of "drill duty" after residency, which might mean you give them a little more than 8 years. but yeah, basically they are saying that they will pay 45-55k a year to just do what i'm doing already

plus a 90% chance of getting called up (for only 90 days, tho). plus "called up" 7 years from now will more likely be disaster relief and not wars of imperial conquest

i am seriously like a heartbeat away from doing this

meanwhile i have a friend at the uniformed services med school who is going to have to give 8+ AFTER residency, whoops lol, sorry bro

gimme inputs

I know a few MD’s who went this route and none have complained.

A few points:

- When you’re called up. That’s it. Pack your bags. It will happen and it will always happen at the most inopportune time.

- Because of your background your assignment will be fairly tailored. However, do not join till you get assurance of your preference.

- Haggle. Haggle. Haggle. I don’t know about MN but most state’s have a difficult time meeting their quotas--use this to your advantage to score every signing bonus imaginable.

The National Guard is a great service and I’m positive you’ll be happy with the work you’ll do.

i heard obama was abolishing the military

srsly, is money the only reason to do this? because if it is, i'd hesitate

nah, money is not the only reason. given that much of what the guard does is "humanitarian," it jives with my feelings about service, in general. and while i was and continue to be vehemently against the war in iraq, and war in general, part-time work as an MD in the service seems like a pretty good way to pay my debt to society w/o having to kill anyone. i'm leery of sudden call-ups, esp since the reason they're dangling so much money is because docs are in short supply abroad, but there are rules in place to limit tours for health professionals to 90 days, with 18 months between tours. given that you don't get called up during school or residency, this means that you chance one tour of duty during your entire 8 year tenure. figure if i go into it knowing that, the sudden call-up won't be as disruptive. and again: healthcare ppl are crucial to disaster relief, which is a lot of what the guard does, and i'm into that.

that sounds like a good way of looking at it.

but yeah, the money is nice, too, can't lie

we know doctors in the Army National Guard and they've seemed pretty happy about it; I can't ask them about it since they've all been redeployed away from our (huge) local base. I guess that's a possible downside: moving around a lot. But none of them had been sent to Iraq, as of last year, if that's something that's bothering you.

sure they're guard?? and not reserve? i was under the impression that one of the advantages was that you DIDNT get moved around a lot (unless activated, in which case you're theirs). you just chilled in your home state, working a civilian job. i didn't think they moved you around from base to base

hmm you might be right. I'm not sure anymore, sorry!

gbx, please be aware that once the military has you, they do not need to keep a single one of their promises. The recruiter can pitch whatever set of inducements he wants to and tell you these things are guaranteed; they are not.

The military will do with you exactly what it pleases, when it pleases and how it pleases and you would have no legal recourse. Try to evade any order they give you and you will not only be slapped back into line, but considered a coward to boot.

I understand this. However, medical pros tend to be given more latitude than enlisted soldiers, simply because they are in very short supply. Moreover, the pitch I'm getting isn't the usual signing-bonus stuff, it's a formal program with formal guidelines. They're subject to change, sure, but the fact that they're in writing and officially titled and so on seems to me that they're much less likely to get changed without notice. A turgid bureaucracy ought to make for less sudden moves. But I appreciate the warning; it's my biggest concern with military service, in general. This program specifically, and the Nat'l Guard generally, seems to sidestep that concern by design. The chances that I'll get shipped off to be cannon fodder are very, very low---docs just don't get that kind of treatment. They're too expensive.

gbx, please be aware that once the military has you, they do not need to keep a single one of their promises. The recruiter can pitch whatever set of inducements he wants to and tell you these things are guaranteed; they are not.

The military will do with you exactly what it pleases, when it pleases and how it pleases and you would have no legal recourse. Try to evade any order they give you and you will not only be slapped back into line, but considered a coward to boot.

This is simply not true. Get everything promised written into your contact and you’ll be fine. However, it is important to note that an implied contract does not exist. Read your contract and nag, nag, nag.

I'm pretty ignorant about the military (and carry plenty of biases), but I'll give my casual impression.

1. If you don't like war, don't join the military (both from a practical and philosophical standpoint)

2. In the era of stop-loss, I would be somewhat skeptical of military terms of service.

But what do I know.

1. this makes sense, tho again i would just be doing a civilian job (fixing up dudes) in a military setting. part-time.
2. yeah.

i mean, i am extremely wary of the military-industrial complex, but i am also a pragmatist and recognize that we do not live in a world where it's abolition will be coming any time soon. also, i'm hoping that by the time i'm actual eligible for real-deal activation, we will not be so deeply embroiled in occupations and imperial conquest

yeah i am all anti-war and -military and whatever but if you can get them to pay for school with such minimal (on paper) obligations on your part, and get good experience out of it, i think just do it. joke's on them!

If you can imagine getting sent to Iraq or some other imperial conquest zone for 90 days, and thinking of it neutrally or positively (in terms of serving your country, not for life satisfaction, obviously), then this sounds like a great idea. If that scenario is something you want to avoid at all costs, then it's probably not worth it.

Given that I'd be working to save the lives of both soldiers and civilians (...I want to do emergency medicine), I'd be inclined to think that it'd be a decent thing to do. Doctors aren't required to do any shooting. Plus, again, in theory, I wouldn't be going anywhere for another 7 years or so. Plenty of time for your galactic president to shape things up.

nb i wouldn't be considering this if mccain had been elected.

"your" = "our" of course.

gbx, please be aware that once the military has you, they do not need to keep a single one of their promises. The recruiter can pitch whatever set of inducements he wants to and tell you these things are guaranteed; they are not.

otm, recruiters are scumbags