war leading is great.

I think reason was not complacency, but in bigger part realistic knowledge that if the cold war becomes hot, the most important weapon would be at least the big red button … and that it does not even matter which side pressed first, because the first one will die as second party. So out of this more realistic point view, people saw no real sense to serve 12 to ? months when being only “nuclear barbeque coal” … means utterly wasted time live in uniform in their opinion.

As far as I know situation was in practice the same in East Germany before end of cold war and re-unity etc. … but of course not well known during the depressing commie time.
During cold war, the southern part of Germany (Bavaria for example) was and still is more conservative and so young men saw more possible any sense in it etc. as others in the north maybe. Although in country side it was more the same as in bigger cities, where younger people saw lesser sense in it.
The demographic differences after re-unity were in several changes. Sometimes more men from Eastern part were in service, sometimes Western part more. It is difficult to give here a clear answer, because the quotation in general changes to often and here the general economic situation plays an important rule too. Young men, ready with school and living in a part where you have lesser chances to get a job etc. decide more to join military as those where they can more choose which job they want to take etc. The last one saw for sure in clear majority no sense to waste ? months of live in military service when being able to make money and getting a good job as alternative!

 

Conscription would make it even easier for the government to go on wild goose chases in an attempt to spread democracy where they don't want it.

A draft puts able bodied young males at the beckoned call of Uncle Sam.

Never mind the rich vs. poor argument.

70% of potential draft age male recruits would be rejected...this is a highly technical military these days. They need bright, physically fit recruits with no criminal records.

Obesity, criminal records, health issues, moral issues, education issues...all disqualify the majority of draft age males.

So the physically fit, the educated and morally strong would be the ones going to war. The fat, the felon, and the drop-out...stay behind.

Is this fair?

There is no such thing as a "fair" draft.

Citizens give back plenty in the form of taxation...I don't buy into the concept we owe them a pound of flesh in return.

 

Actually, college deferments were available to anybody who was attending college. Be it the Rich at Harvard, or the poor minority on a grant at Philander Smith College or the student at Boise Junior College working on a teaching degree. It was not the fact they were "rich" that had a damned thing to do with it, it was the fact that they were in college.

My dad got his deferment in the early 1960's because he was attending El Camino College. His family was not even close to "rich", this was something all college kids got. So please stop trying to make this some kind of "class warfare" issue.

 

Why people believe that, I have no idea. But it is completely wrong.

The rallying cry was not "No Taxation", it was "No Taxation Without Representation". The King and Parlaiment had dissolved all Colonial Assemblies, and refused to meet with representatives sent to England to try and resolve the issues of Representation and Local Jurisdiction. In fact, among the long list of grievences in the Declaration of Independence (among them was imprisonment without trial, hiring foreign mercenaries to invade Colonial Territories, and disbanding all local governments and militias), taxation was only mentioned a single time...

And yes, every government can impose mass drafts, unless it is forbidden by it's Constitution (and I am not aware of any that do forbid that). SO what you are saying there makes absolutely no sense, and is based upon a false conception of the causes of the Revolutionary War.

 

Japan started way before the German did. And so did the Italians.

 

The simple fact is, Japan had largely been at war and expanding it's Empire since it left it's self-imposed isolation and decided to join the rest of the world.

Most actually date this all the way back to 1894, when the First Sino-Japanese war started over Korea. Then they joined the "Eight Nation Alliance" to put down the Boxer Rebellion. At that point they for the first time turned their eyes outwards, and realized that they needed a "Great Empire" like those in Europe. So they set their eyes upon taking other territory. Chosin, Manchuko, and large areas of China were soon theirs. Most of the time through conquest, even from former allies like Russia.

Japan never stopped expanding until the end of WWII. In less then 50 years they had one of the largest Empires in the history of the world, even larger then the one Hitler gained. Then lost it all.



Same with Italy. There were 2 different "Italo-Abyssinian Wars", the last from 1935-1936. And it was the large international ignoring and lack of League of Nations effect on the Italian invasion of Albania that basically gave Der Paper Hanger the final "green light" to invade Poland.

Funny, how the last nation of the 3 to take offensive actions is credited by some who are ignorant of history as "being the first" to take offensive action.

 

No one wants to go to war but, as we have learned, war has a nasty habit of coming to you. Refusing to recognize this and refusing to have a strong military is sentencing the innocent to death.

 

Say you own a company and you need employees. Do you provide proper incentives to encourage a qualified candidate to work for you or do you threaten them with prison if they won't work for you?

Can you imagine a company that recruits workers by threatening their personal liberties?

This is precisely what the U.S. Government was doing prior to rescinding the draft. They coerced "employees" into joining the armed forces under the threat of prison.

Look at the wording at a typical letter of induction...

Willful failure to report promptly to this local board...etc.

subjects the violator to a fine and imprisonment

This is a threat...the Government is threatening a citizen to take away their personal liberty if they don't comply.

If your 18 year old son received this letter, by say McDonalds. Report for induction at your local McDonalds. We need fry cooks, order takers/cash register attendants. Failure to appear at your local McDonalds will result in imprisonment. What would your reaction be to a letter like this? You'd be outraged, wouldn't you? Be honest, you'd be angry.

The U.S. Government gets away...literally...with murder...under the false flag of patriotism...and some have bought into it, hook, line and sinker.

True patriotism is questioning your government.

Our nation was founded upon...DISSENT.

Remember that. We have the DNA of rebels and rabble rousers coursing through our veins...not blind subjects to a kingdom.

Say no to a return of the draft...it will open a pandora's box of the government infringing upon the life and liberty of the very citizens that are supposed to be represented by it.

 

And people also forget that it was Italia who are credited with the invention of concentration camps during their conquest of Lybia. By the end of the war almost all of the lybian population were in camps and subjected to torture, starvation and mass executions.

 

The first duty of any national government is survival.

 

Churchill must have had bankers whispering in his ear.

 

Confirmed by what source please?
I think you confuse Libya with Ethiopia ... where Italy even used poison gas as weapon!

 

Actually, they have been invented many times throughout the centuries.

But their modern invention is credited to the Spanish, who used them in the Philippines and Cuba prior to the US involvement in those territories. And other countries would use them, from the UK in the Boer War, to Germany during their period of unrest in their African colonies.

 

Niether North Korea nor North Vietnam posed a viable threat to the U.S. Government. These wars were essentially meddling. We gave away half of Europe to the Communists post-WW2. All of s sudden some desk jockey in an ivory tower suggests the "domino theory" spread of communism must be stopped.

The 38th parallel remains 60 years after the war in Korea, and shortly after the fall of Saigon, South Vietnam was overwhelmed by the NVA.

These wars were a waste of blood and treasure, and the govenment had the audacity to draft able bodied young men to fight them..regimes that posed no direct threat to the U.S. government.

We have established historical precedent of how little the U.S. Government values the lives of it's citizens...viewing the able body young male as expendable, as a tip of a spear in some perverse diplomatic game.

We gave away 1/2 of Europe to Stalin. The time to fight the domino effect of communism was then not 20 years later in Vietnam.

If an able bodied male or female for that matter, believes in a cause, believes that serving in the Armed Forces is a noble task...they can volunteer. This is the proper way to recruit, not by coercion, not by threats to rescind personal liberties. Incentivize joining up, prepare a case for going to war and you'll get volunteers.

I volunteered, and I was fully cognizant of my decision, that I would be giving up personal liberties, that I would have no control over where I might be deployed in support of a conflict. I willingly volunteered.

Draftees were not given that choice, and our U.S. Governmetn abused the privilege.

We have historical precedent, some are just too blind to see it.

North Vietnam and the Vietcong...North Korea, posed no viable threat to the existence of our U.S. Government at the time we went to war in these so called "police actions."

 

A return of conscription will unbridle a U.S. Government and enable it to run roughshod over the very citizenry it is supposed to represent

Power belongs to the people...any elected official talking of bringing back the draft must be voted out of existence. Let them sell used cars and peddle their b.s elsewhere.

NO draft

 

I agree with that idea myself.

However, that being said I also support a draft registration, as we have now. So that in the event that it became needed it could be quickly instituted. But at this time, I do not see any reason to actually have a draft, now or for the next 3-5 years.

 

I agree and highly respect your opinion as someone who does not just talk the talk. You've served in the armed forces for the majority of your adult life.

It is naive to think a draft will never be necessary. Selective service minimially establishes an available pool...I'm not against registering, I willingly did the same thing turning 18.

I can't rule out a time in the future that the seriousness of events won't involve initiating a military draft.

It is idealistic to claim a draft will never be needed, a caveat is necessary...and Selective Service is a good idea.

 

And registration can be used for other things as well. For example, many do not seem to be aware that a person can be drafted into any of the Uniform Services of the United States.

That means not only the military, but the other "Uniform Services" as well, including NOAA, Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security.

Say if a major disaster happened in Mexico and people started to stream through the border by the tens of millions, they might institute a draft for the DHS. Or of there was a major pandemic, they might institute a draft for HHS.

And if there was a major disaster right here in the US (New Madrid Fault, Yellowstone Supervolcano), they might institute a draft of the military for purely internal purposes (likely drafting the majority into the National Guard). Remember, I am not only thinking of "war" for the needs of a draft in the future.

 

Nations do not have to be direct or "viable" threats to the United States to threaten our interests.

 

There was ZERO political or public will in the United States or its allies to go straight from fighting one world war to fighting another against its former allies (Soviets).