Time to End the Draft…and Save $24 Million a Year

[The Straight Story]

Time to End the Draft…and Save $24 Million a Year

With the U.S. military more than able to fill its ranks with volunteers and everyone looking for places to cut federal spending, a Republican congressman wants to officially do away with the requirement that 18-year-old males register for a draft that hasn’t happened since the Vietnam War.

Representative Mike Coffman of Colorado, who served in both the U.S. Army and Marines Corp, has introduced a bill that would abolish the Selective Service System, arguing that the “outdated program” has cost the government more $700 million over the past 31 years. Coffman insists the change will free up $24 million a year, as well as military personnel currently assigned to handle paperwork for Selective Service.

The Selective Service System was briefly disbanded in the mid-1970s after the end of Vietnam. But the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union prompted Washington to reinstate it in 1980. However, the last time an American was actually drafted was 1973.

Coffman’s proposal would allow the president to bring back the draft if a national emergency arose.

http://www.allgov.com/Where_is_the_Money_Going/ViewNews/Time_to_End_the_Draft__and_Save_24_Million_Dollars_a_Year_110217

[FSogol]

1. Good idea. n/t

[era veteran]

2. INMHO a bad idea leading to more societal stratification

Start the active , no deferment , unless by a military doctor draft.
Every Americans responsibility to serve our country. The power may not start wars if they thought Junior WARBUCK$ might have to die.
This seems obvious to me and the only fair democratic way to run the military unless you want a permanent Sardaukar class of warriors.


Note I said no deferment draft ok?

[MadHound]

3. TPTB won't give a damn,

All they'll see is a larger pool of bodies to be sacrificed, and therefore crank the military machine to an even higher pitch.

And even if they can't get their progeny a deferment, they will still find ways to keep them safe. Like Bush the Elder did with his son, slide them into the National Guard. Or insuring that their kids are kept in the back as office staff or aids, whatever. They will be protected.

It would be a bad idea to crank up the draft again.

[era veteran]

5. The National Guard was a way to dodge the draft during

VietNam. Now they go to war. A favorite bumper sticker in Iraq earlier in the war was "One Weekend a month my ass".
I don't think this country was built on unshared sacrifice.
A universal draft seems like a must in a truly democratic society. The kids with limited horizons are sometimes forced to consider a military career as a way out.
If the Republic has reason to war then it should be fought with a true cross section.

The professional warrior class is different now. What will they evolve into?

[jeff47]

4. Junior WARBUCK$ would just have some cushy job far from the front lines (nt)

[era veteran]

7. Perhaps,some will, but on the modern battlefield the

front lines are not so much lines on the map anymore. Anyway just about all the chickenshits can figure out how to avoid serving in a combat MOS. All through history the rich get benefited one way or another in all cultures and under any political model.

I reckon we should start sometime rectifying that. Why not now?

[jeff47]

9. Because your solution won't rectify it.

There's an inherent need for DoD personnel in the US to support those outside the US. They will never see the front lines if they don't want to.

As a result, your solution means a military where the sons of the rich remain in the Pentagon to order a much larger mass of the sons of the poor people to their deaths. And you leave no option for the sons of the poor to choose any other path.

(Daughters too, 'but including both didn't flow as well)

[era veteran]

10. Jeff, don't you guess the people at at least may be able

to change that. I have not given up.

[jeff47]

11. Changing it via a draft won't work.

That does not make it unchangeable.

[era veteran]

12. Well I think you are wrong

Change can happen. I, again, haven't given up.

I was the last student at the University of Kentucky drafted. I joined instead as that is a thing my family has always done.

I have thought of this crap for almost 40 years and I don't reckon you will change my mind.

Universal draft = democracy
EOM/ peace R

[hfojvt]

6. we'd better do better than the Sardaukar

that one drunk guy from Leto's army killed 17 of them before he was taken out.

[era veteran]

8. They were the baddest of the bad until they weren't

Would that have been Duncan Idaho? LOL