The State of Our Armed Forces (USA)

[Etadanik]

Came across an interesting article lately:

http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HI27Aa01.html

Notable quote:

The military has greatly intensified its recruitment efforts, relaxed its age and education requirements for enlistment, and offered unprecedented bonuses and benefits packages - worth thousands of dollars - to enlistees and active-duty soldiers who re-enlist.

It has also increased enlistments by individuals with "serious criminal misconduct" in their records and eased requirements of non-citizens - of which there are currently about 40,000 in the US armed services - and made them eligible to citizenship after only one day of active-duty service.

Two immediate observations -

1. If the military is getting starved for troops, is a draft coming soon? That is - assuming a continuation of Bush administration policies.

2. I recently learned about a Computer Science post-doctoral (that is, the rank after Ph. D which basically sets you up to become a professor) at one of the finest CS institutions in the US (Berkeley) who traveled to his home country (India) to get married and then couldn't get back due to Visa problems. So... We prevent people like these from immigrating, but allow individuals with "serious criminal conduct" to be eligible for citizenship for serving a day in active-duty? I mean... Sure, they're risking their lives and all, but where do you draw the line between a citizen and a mercenary? I could see people enlisting for a week and then shooting themselves in the leg or something simply to get the benefits - not saying that they would, but it seems a practice encouraged by current policies.

Usually, one would think that there's a correlation between the number of recruitees and the popularity of the war, but it's clear that there are other ways to get people to enlist, even in support of a increasingly unpopular war... Are we, then, entering into an age of commercial warfare - when war occurs for the sake of employment more than it occurs by the will of the people?

Disturbing trends for disturbing times.

[GrobbeeTrull]

As many have stated before, and I'll state again - if there's a draft, I'll expatriate and live in China.

[findar]

thats nothing new, we've always had armed service an option instead of jail.

[Etadanik]

Note the keyword: increased.

[ValkyrieIsAboutToDie]

I'm wearing a "Draft Dodger" shirt right now from t-shirt hell. If the U.S. escalates military activity (especially in preparation for conflict with you-know-where) I'm getting the fuck out of here. They're already scraping the vertiable bottom of the barrel in terms of acceptable people to serve in the military, as is evidenced by this thread, so if they need more troops fast, which they very well might in the near future, you know what they're going to do. Fuck throwing myself on the frontlines for a country I loathe, a social mindset I shudder to think about, a stance on religion that makes me gag, a bleak environmental outlook and most importantly, an administration that rejects, denies and kicks to the curb everything I believe in and stand for.

[Kiely]

Honestly, do you think the U.S. has the manpower enough and funds to do another war with either Iran/n.korea/anywhere in middleeast etc countries?
I assumed they needed as much foreign aid in Iraq in order to keep on top of everything, given the country is large, which then leads me to assume if they were to move there focus elsewhere they won't be getting support from the majority of the countries involved last time.

[xeg_IS]

There won't be a draft. The word draft has been used as a tool in order to fuel opposition. Stop over reacting.

[Aegdaien]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull

As many have stated before, and I'll state again - if there's a draft, I'll expatriate and live in China.

I'll leave this at: Wtf? I hope you're joking. Sarcasm doesn't travel well through text.

But more importantly, the only service actively recruiting more people is the Army. And they actually overshot their recruiting goals for this fiscal year. The Navy and Air Force are both actually downsizing quite a lot. I wouldn't worry about a draft though, I don't ever see that happening in the future with the way our military is built. There's a reason why those services are downsizing. As training and technology get better, you need less and less people to do the same job. Same theory with our aircraft. We only need 1 F/A-22 where we needed 6 F-15Es in the past.

[Eomer]

What you say may be true for the Navy and Air Force, and perhaps even the Army for the combat phase of a war. But the Iraq war is definite proof that you still need lots of boots on the ground in a drawn out occupation.

[Kuro]

A draft will never be called again. Politicians are too worried about being re-elected to do so. Bringing on a draft would be political suicide.

Just chain up every murderer, psycopath, and pedo in the prisons, air-drop them into iran, then air-drop in some guns.

It'd reduce tax-payer expenditures on prisons to boot!

[AngryGerbil]

1) The military is accepting people with identical or worse records than the one I got rejected with in 1998. (My criminal record was clean, but I chose not to lie about my previous drug use. I was denied.)

2) There won't be another draft unless we are involved in a serious campaign against a serious enemy. The middle east could (and should imo) be that campaign, but it won't ever become that as long as Europe continues to do what they do and continues to deny the true power they could wield in world affairs. But that is the derail of all derails (in other words, don't get me started) so I'll just admit to some slight digression and move on.

3) If there was a draft I would honor it and serve. And so long as we were still out there alone as a nation in the middle east, I would be an objector. If the UN/Europe were with us, I wouldn't need to be drafted, I'd have tried to sign up again.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by Etadanik

It has also increased enlistments by individuals with "serious criminal misconduct" in their records and eased requirements of non-citizens - of which there are currently about 40,000 in the US armed services - and made them eligible to citizenship after only one day of active-duty service.

I'd rather see people with serious criminal misconduct forced into military service than left to sit in a prison that my tax money is paying for doing *nothing* for anyone but themselves. At least in the military they might get rehabilitated because prison time sure as hell doesn't do much to make someone less of a criminal. And if they happen to die in the line of duty, so be it. One less violent criminal to worry about.

And if someone wants to become a US citizen by serving in the military, so be it. Even if they are eligible to become a citizen after one day of active-duty service they still have a committment to the military for several years, and that active-duty time doesn't start until after basic so it isn't like they are signing up at a recruiter and becoming a citizen the next day.

Originally Posted by Etadanik

1. If the military is getting starved for troops, is a draft coming soon? That is - assuming a continuation of Bush administration policies.

Before a draft would even begin three things must happen.
1. A shortage of military personnel must exist that cannot be satisfied by the addition of National Guard, Reserve troops, and select deactivated military personnel who can still be reactivated.
2. Congress must pass legislation to reactivate the draft.
3. The president must approve that legislation.

We haven't even reached the first item yet, so until you start hearing that every guard and reserve troop is being activated, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

For information on how the draft is actually conducted go hit up http://people.howstuffworks.com/us-draft.htm.

The order the draft is held in (by age) is that all available 20 year old men are selected, then 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 19, and 18. If more troops are needed then congress must pass additional legislation to expand the age range and the president must approve that legislation.

If you want to avoid the draft, the generally accepted list of ways to do so (short of leaving the country) is also listed at the above URL.

Originally Posted by Etadanik

I could see people enlisting for a week and then shooting themselves in the leg or something simply to get the benefits - not saying that they would, but it seems a practice encouraged by current policies.

Just because you are eligible to become a citizen after the first day of active duty just means that you are eligible. I suspect that there is a clause somewhere saying that you must also meet some number of years of military service (which still would make it a faster process than the traditional method).

[Dekton]

A draft is a good thing for a few reasons

1) It distributes the hardship of wars among all groups more equally. Currently the people who are fighting are from middle to low income backgrounds. There is no incentive for a wealthy person to send their kids to die when there are profits to be made. Since most of the money is made by the top 10% they usually have a very large voice in our political system. If a few kids from the Rockefellers family lost some limbs maybe you would see a little more talk before we send people on some wild ass adventure.

2) Draftees keep the military in check. Since they don’t have careers to think about, they will tell it like it is. They can’t be bullied or intimidated. In other words, they would blow the lid on bullshit like torture and billions spent on useless weapon systems. They keep the military grounded in the value system of the country they serve since they don’t care about the reputation of their employer.

3) It is essential to a healthy democracy. It is really funny to me how some of you guys are like, boy I sure do love all that cheap gas and fancy TVs but if there’s a draft I’m fuckin gone! The world is a messy place. We need force to secure resources for ourselves. We may all want to hold hands and sing songs but that isn’t the way it works. That being said, if there was a draft EVERYONE would have a vested interest in our use of said force. Therefore if we tried to go to war in another silly place like Iran there would be mass protests like the 60s and maybe we could stop some of this crap before it starts. But, most people are too busy eating cheetoes and happy someone else is doing the dying to get off their ass and say something. It is an interesting phenomena and one the government is using to max effect.

4) Like was said before, at this point the draft isn’t going to happen. It would be instant political suicide. Of course who knows what could happen with the current bunch running things.

5) Last thing, just because someone committed a crime doesn’t make them expendable. I guess you don’t understand that it costs quite a bit to train a military member. The military is a team. That’s why you can’t have psychopaths and drug addicts. The level of trust is something else. In short, criminals generally make poor soldiers.

D

[Fender]

I'm not exactly frothing at the mouth at the prospect of a draft....but if there ever is another one I hope it's fair.

By fair, I mean:

1. No deferments....of any fucking kind. Even if you aren't fit for the active duty military they still need to pluck you out of your life and force you do do something for the government while the draft is in place.

2. Women need to be included. Not saying send them all to boot camp...but like the folks above, their lives need to be forcefully interrupted just like the men.

3. Don't let the dodgers come back. You run - bye bye citizenship for eternity.

[AngryGerbil]

Originally Posted by Daerath

Just because you are eligible to become a citizen after the first day of active duty just means that you are eligible. I suspect that there is a clause somewhere saying that you must also meet some number of years of military service (which still would make it a faster process than the traditional method).

My best friend on earth was in the Airforce when he got married. I was a groomsman in his wedding. One of his ushers was an Airforce buddy of his who had won the Egyptian state lottery (unknown amount, probably not as much as an American lottery but still, probably not peanuts either. He drove a brand new Mustang when I met him) and took a 'vacation' to America. He then enlisted in the AirForce and stayed past the time-limit that Egypt set on him to be away as a citizen without papers (or something like that). He is basically a fugitive in Egypt but also a US Airman. To this day he isn't entirely sure what his fate will be. A US citizen or an Egyptian prisoner?

I have no point here btw, just an antecdote to coincide with the quote.