Democrat plans laws to reinstate the draft

[Ranger Bill]

Rangel's draft proposal has been an annual stunt of his for several years. He proposes it, then votes against it.

Regarding the draft, it is an emotional and personal issue for me because I was drafted after high school graduation along with over half of the males in my graduating class.

My feeling is that our country should always have a military draft option on the books. But it should only be activated when the threat is so large that manpower requrements cannot be met by enlistments.

When I was drafted, I ended up enlisting before the oath so I could get the MOS I wanted. I served with many draftees. About one third of all men who served in-country in Vietnam were draftees and in WWII over half were draftees. We can not fight a major war without a draft.

In my Ranger company, about one in four Ranger "volunteers" were draftees. Ranger Steadfast was one of them. Some of the best Team Leaders and Team Members were draftees.

As for "Starship Troopers," I am old and cranky enough to personally believe that if only those who have served had full citizen rights to vote, our country would be a much better place.

[Ranger175csar]

I'm all for the Draft, once they require all Govt. Office holders to serve a mandatory of 4 years prior to their term.

[ANGRYCivilian]

I voted no. I think there are still enough American Citizens who are willing to serve their country without anyone telling them they have to.

[Everett Ruess]

As did Lieutenant General Sir William Butler, in a quote often (but mistakenly) attributed to Thucycides: "The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards."

You mean I have to change my sig line? Hmmm....I'll need to look into this...

[Jim]

The discussion continues:

Washington Times
November 29, 2006
Pg. 17
Chill Behind The Draft Talk
By Jack Kelly
"Making mock o' uniforms what guards you while you sleep is cheaper than them uniforms, and they're starvation cheap." Rudyard Kipling, (Tommy) 1892

Rep. Charles Rangel, New York Democrat, who will be chairman of the tax-writing House Ways & Means committee in the next Congress, raised eyebrows and ruffled feathers when, on Fox News Sunday Nov. 26, he declared:

"I want to make it abundantly clear: if there's anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment. If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the Army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq."

Mr. Rangel is not the first Democrat to express such sentiments. In a speech at a California college the week before the election, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) said: "You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't you get stuck in Iraq."

The first thing to note is how stuck in Vietnam Sen. Kerry and Rep. Rangel are. The draft Army that fought that war was comprised chiefly of young men unable to obtain college deferments. Soldiers then had less education and lower intelligence than the youth population as a whole.

But this hasn't been true since Ronald Reagan became president. The typical service member today has more education and a higher IQ than do his or her civilian counterparts.

Currently, about 98 percent of enlisted personnel have high school diplomas, compared to about 75 percent for the youth cohort (18 to 24 year olds) as a whole. In 2005, more than 70 percent of recruits scored in the upper half on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, the military equivalent of an IQ test. Only half the youth population, of course, scores in the upper half.

About 92 percent of officers have college degrees, and a higher proportion of military officers have advanced degrees than do college graduates as a whole. (Between 2000 and 2005, the proportion of officers with advanced degrees ranged between 35 and 45 percent.)

Those who volunteer to serve are more rural and southern than the youth population as a whole. But, according to a study by Dr. Tim Kane of the Heritage Foundation, they come from wealthier neighborhoods than do their civilian counterparts. Another liberal shibboleth demolished by the data is the notion that the military is made up disproportionately of racial minorities. According to the 2000 Census American Community Survey, 75.6 percent of the adult population self identifies as white. In 2004 and 2005, 73.1 percent of recruits were white. Since whites are, on average, older than blacks or hispanics, whites probably are slightly overrepresented compared to the entire military age population. They definitely are overrepresented in the combat arms, the reverse of what was true of the draft Army in Vietnam.

I agree with Rep. Rangel that "no young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits." Basic pay for a private E1 is $15,282. For a second lieutenant, it's $28,994. Not many are enlisting for the money.

But many bright young people have enlisted to fight, and have re-enlisted after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. That the reason is a mystery to Rep. Rangel, Sen. Kerry and many other Democratic "leaders" is troubling for the future of our country.

I know something about the reason. My draft number was 363. I'd have gone after women and children. But in 1970, I dropped out of law school to join the Marines as a private. I had reasons both noble and base. I was bored with school, tired of cold Wisconsin winters. I wondered if I were man enough to be a Marine. But mostly, it was because my country was at war.

Our country is again at war. Yet it does not occur to Charlie Rangel or John Kerry that bright young people today enlist in the Armed Forces to protect their homes, their families, our freedoms.

For many Democrats, being an American is all about rights, not duties. Though the rights they demand would not exist were it not for the dwindling number of Americans willing to perform the duties of citizenship, they regard with barely concealed contempt those Americans whose sense of duty causes them to go in harm's way. If America's "leaders" have such attitudes, can the nation long survive?

Jack Kelly, a syndicated columnist, is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

[Nomad]

Well I had joined before the GWOT broke out...so where does that place me?

And to think that in all of my confusion, I travelled from Europe to the US to join an Army under a Democrat...I must have been completely lost and misguided by my parents poor upbringing...

[rgrjoe175]

Well I had joined before the GWOT broke out...so where does that place me?

A dumbass.

Seriously though, those clowns are a bunch of jackasses. The problem is that there are a minority of troops that do fit into this mold. They them associate that minority with the whole. They stereotype folks and then actually believe that all troops are of the same background. We who have served know this to be false but the general public hear these "leaders" telling them this is the case and they start to believe that bullshit.

This has been going on for a long time and will continue into the future.
We either learn to except it or we do something about it. The only way we can do something about it is become politically active ourselves and start driving change. But in all honesty that is difficult for us because we tend to stay away from people we find to be so reprehensible, politicians.

JP

[Nomad]

Well I had joined before the GWOT broke out...so where does that place me?

A dumbass.

Seriously though, those clowns are a bunch of jackasses. The problem is that there are a minority of troops that do fit into this mold. They them associate that minority with the whole. They stereotype folks and then actually believe that all troops are of the same background. We who have served know this to be false but the general public hear these "leaders" telling them this is the case and they start to believe that bullshit.

This has been going on for a long time and will continue into the future.
We either learn to except it or we do something about it. The only way we can do something about it is become politically active ourselves and start driving change. But in all honesty that is difficult for us because we tend to stay away from people we find to be so reprehensible, politicians.

JP

Yeah, thanks...I kind of figured one of you would point that out!

Good points about us dealing with politics. I must say that I agree with your statment about us staying away from politicians - they are not a bunch I like to even be around if I don't have to.