Congress Debates Expanded Draft Amid Military Recruitment Challenges Republicans and Democrats are weighing proposals to expand military conscription to women and make registration automatic. Both proposals face an uphill path to becoming law. Men, Women, Everybody gets to be part of the draft. In a rare moment of bipartisan agreement, Congressinal Republicans and Democrats both think there should be a serious look at the draft and who is eligible. The answer is everyone and automatically. When we look at the world, and the drastic events going on in it, it becomes less of a controversy that we need to be prepared to raise up the numbers of the military and conscription is a deal that is on the table for the government to enact as we face historic shortfalls in military recruitment. I know some of you in the military section of the forum have expressed concern about the lack of recruits joining the military and yes, yes that is the case exactly. Here is a possible and bipartisan solution to that problem.
Im fine with compulsing military service, for a relatively short time. Im absolutely opposed to compulsing military service overseas. Too many of our wars have turned out to be BS and had nothing to do with protecting America. Conscript for defense of the homeland on the homeland. All else should be entirely and only voluntary.
The US government depends on the military to fight in conflicts that they deem important. And without the numbers to take up the fight offshore, the USA would have been invaded and taken over by a hostile power a long time ago. I'm probably going to regret supporting this, because I would have a tough time being whipped into shape in the military after being drafted. But overseas military service is perhaps of greater importance than homeland defense.
No. We couldn't even conquer Afghanistan with 20 years, 2 trillion dollars and the most effective military on the planet. And we have about 10x as many guns per capita just in civilian hands as they do. Defeating a nations military is a very small part of conquering them. Even if someone was able to defeat ours, and on our home turf would be the least likely way that would happen, pacification would be near impossible. Modern technology has made asymmetric warfare essentially unbeatable. The only way someone is going to successfully invade the US and keep it is if they collapse our economy and supply chain first and sit back in secret (lest we forget about our divisions and unite against an actual enemy) and let us do most of the work for them. And there is nothing standing in the way of that happening now, especially not the burden of supporting a global military empire. Besides. If a war is just and necessary, Americans have always risen to the occassion. Its only when The People know a war is bullshit that the govt can't find enough of them willing to go and fight it.
Instead of drafting people the government needs to look directly in the mirror and answer the question as to WHY there is such a recruiting and retention problem in the military. Those of us in the military know the answer, many civilians honest enough to be objective know the answer, and the government 100% knows the answer. The problem is they just don't like the answer and will do any and everything possible to skate around the issue instead of addressing the actual problem. It's two fold, for one the military has been poisoned by DEI and woke nonsense that very few people actually support and those who do support it are not exactly the type of folks you want in the military. That's driving away traditional military recruits in favor of more progressive ones. The problem is they are catering to a demographic that doesn't exactly like the military or the country in the first place. This isn't anecdotal, I have the exit surveys and part of my job is to conduct surveys on all types of stuff. One of the biggest complaints outside of the normal Soldier complaining is the woke stuff. Soldiers don't want to be forced to sit in mandatory classes regarding Equal Opportunity or SHARP or focus groups about perceived minority struggles. They don't want to be forced to sit in classes talking about accepting transgender Soldiers. They don't want to participate in pride month runs in June or any of this nonsense. If they are forced to sit in classes then they want to have classes on their specific MOS or Soldiering skills, not progressive talking points. Recruitment is completely out of touch. I was at the movies a few weeks ago and one of the preview ads was for the Army. At the end of the ad a bunch of folks in the theater started laughing and somebody shouted at "Yeah that'll sure get people to join. we're so ****ed". This is a military town, those were Soldiers in there laughing at this recruitment ad. The Navy is out here featuring a full blown drag queen as their spokesperson. I mean lets be real, who the hell are they trying to recruit and in what world did anybody with sense sign off on this thinking it was a good idea? The only ones who still seem to put out manly cool looking recruitment videos are the Marines. Some of the Air Force ones are pretty decent still as well but the Army and Navy have went full stupid. I'll say the quiet part out loud that everyone knows but nobody is willing to say because our society has been hijacked by this nonsense. The military doesn't have a recruitment problem, it has a specific demographic recruitment problem regarding the traditional demographic that usually joins the military, young white men. Why? Because the military has seemingly done everything it can to NOT target them as viable recruits and catered to everything else. The military retention problem mirrors the recruitment problem. Almost every single person I know in my age group coming up on retirement is choosing to retire instead of continuing service for one specific reason, we are tired of the woke crap. "This isn't the Army anymore". I've witnessed dozens of NCO's and Officers just get out mid career over this problem. So good job military, if the goal is to cater to the woke and accept losing the experience and value of senior leadership then you're doing a good job. We aren't going to get over it and eventually accept this stuff as the "new normal" of the military, we're going to leave and go work somewhere else. And leave we are, in droves. But we aren't allowed to say that, so instead of addressing it and reversing it they'll try to draft people instead if necessary because that makes sense. Never in the history of humanity has a drafted force performed better than a volunteer force. If the actual sincere goal is the strengthen the military in order to face potential upcoming conflicts then change the military to attract VOLUNTEERS. So what if that means an uptick in testosterone filled young men. This is the MILITARY, not a Disney movie. We want strength and power, not diversity and inclusion for the sake of diversity and inclusion. If an actual draft were to happen anytime soon then you'll see just as many testosterone filled conservative young men draft dodging as you'll see blue haired progressive kids because those conservative young men want nothing to do with fighting for the military in its current state. And to top it off young people are way more informed than previous generations and they are not too keen on fighting "foreign wars for our freedom" anymore. You'll be hard pressed to convince any young "America First" man why he needs to get drafted to go defend Europe or Taiwan or anything.
That is a big reason why I finally retired a few years ago. My intent was to stick it out until next year when I hit mandatory retirement age. But in 2020 I simply had enough and got out. And it is all the nonsense that has now largely taken over the military. Leaders are now spending more time doing paperwork for absolute nonsense than they are doing their actual jobs. And each year more and more nonsense comes down the pipe, not actually requested by the military itself but forced upon them by the DoD. I still remember the shock at being told what all I had to do when given a 4 day pass. Back in the 1980s, that was generally our NCO asking where you were going, and telling to to be safe and not do anything stupid. Today, it involves a detailed travel plan with route, where you plan on stopping to take breaks, having your vehicle inspected, and making sure you are not traveling more than 250 miles from base. It is absolutely insane. Back in the early 1990s everybody in my shop knew what I did on a 96. As soon as we were released, I changed clothes and drove from the Bay Area to LA, about 400 miles. All my Chief Warrant Officer cared about is that I was safe and made it back in time for work the next week. That is why decades later when I had similar 96 hour passes I told nobody where I was going. I did trips like that anyways, but I am also an adult and know what to do and what not to do. It is like they think all that nonsense will stop stupidity. It does not, it simply makes it harder on those that do the right things. I especially loved that while I can only drive 250 miles in a day in my civilian car according to the Army. Yet a few weeks after such a 4 day pass I had to drive our Battalion XO from El Paso to Yuma. A single day, over 550 miles with at most a half hour lunch break and several shorter ones. If I had dared to turn in a pass request with that I would have been drop-kicked to see the Sergeant Major. But as driving for duty, go ahead.
I am against the draft. I favor retaining our current all-volunteer army. But if we do have a draft, I agree that both genders should be drafted. I don't really understand this modern stuff about infinite genders, but my view can also be stated as: if we do have a draft, I agree that all genders should be drafted.
It's the classic Army "covering it's ass" policy on steroids that has gotten too extreme. It's been an ongoing fight forever and as I'm sure you've heard, if we treat them like children they will act like children, treat them like adults and they will act like adults (usually). We treat them like children when they are in fact adults, not only adults but adult Soldiers. I vividly remember the straw that broke the camels back for me back when I was an NCO. Normal weekend and at around 1am on Saturday night I got a call from the local PD saying they had one of my Soldiers in custody down at the station. My Section Sergeant calls me right after and we head out to pick him up. During this time the CSM's policy was if any Soldier gets in trouble over the weekend then he wanted to see the entire Enlisted CoC of that Soldier in his office bright an early to explain ourselves. Turns out it was a domestic violence issue with alcohol involved but here's the kicker, his wife beat HIS ASS. Clocked him with a frying pan, we show up to the station and the whole side of my Privates face was busted up. But in this particular State at the time if there is a domestic violence issue then man is automatically removed from the household. So he gets taken away by the cops. Show up to CSM's office first thing Monday morning with my Section Sergeant and Platoon Sergeant and before I could even say I word I got a mouthful by the CSM about poor leadership and all this other nonsense. He then asked me directly to state what I failed at as an NCO that allowed this to happen. I said I don't know then he started naming off things I apparently "should" have done differently. While spouting off his list he got to "safety brief" and asked me who gave this Soldier a proper safety brief prior to releasing him for the weekend? That's when I lost it and I blurted out "YOU DID! You gave the damn safety brief CSM you're the one who had the whole BN in formation on Friday and gave the safety brief remember! What am I seriously supposed to do go live with the kid and his family to make sure his wife doesn't get drunk and cold clock his ass one day?!" Both of my senior NCO's looked at me in horror and grabbed me and marched me out the door and kept yelling back "we got it CSM we got it". We get in the hallway and they started laughing and were like bro you can't do that blah blah. I was like no **** this and **** him what the literal **** are we supposed to do about something like this? I'm sick of dealing with this sort of crap. So I decided to put in a packet for an MOS that is way more "mature" oriented than normal Combat Arms and luckily they took me and I never looked back. Now I get to walk around and hear stories about all of the ridiculous crap that Senior NCO's have to deal with and I get to smile thankful that I don't have to deal with that crap anymore. Soldiers will always be Soldiers, it rarely changes, but holy crap are the ones we're getting now something else. I couldn't be an NCO nowadays I'd be in jail.
We weren't fighting a war for conquest in Afghanistan, or in any other war except the North's war on the South. Maybe the war on Spain could be spun as such, but even it was more of a defensive war.
We've had drafts throughout most of our history. All the 'new Volunteer Army' did was turn the military into a 'New Deal' type of jobs program, and now it's a resort spa for free sex changes. Like the Romans in their end times, we now rely on foreign mercenaries.
Defeating a nations military is a very small part of conquering them. Or pacifying them, if you need to split hairs. Even if someone was able to defeat ours, and on our home turf would be the least likely way that would happen, pacification would be near impossible. Modern technology has made asymmetric warfare essentially unbeatable. The only way someone is going to successfully invade the US and keep it is if they collapse our economy and supply chain first and sit back in secret (lest we forget about our divisions and unite against an actual enemy) and let us do most of the work for them. And there is nothing standing in the way of that happening now, especially not the burden of supporting a global military empire. Besides. If a war is just and necessary, Americans have always risen to the occasion. Its only when The People know a war is bullshit that the govt can't find enough of them willing to go and fight it.
No hair splitting on my part, I just point out the facts. I pretty much ignore the 'Evul Amurkin imperializm' rhetoric for what it is, nonsense put out by criminal syndicates and pirate regimes..
Here was my idea for a compromise proposal: Should women who get abortion be eligible for the draft? (in 'Abortion', Sept 18, 2021) Interestingly this push to incorporate women, making them subject to the draft, seems to be coming from the Progressive Left. I wonder how women feel about that?
