The Draft a little history

[nadinbrzezinski]

Ok, ok, we all know it is geting drafty, but lets review the history and why bringing it back now will be fun for the bushies.

The draft was was finally suspended in 1973 truly began in 1941, shortly after Pearl Harbor. People did not resist it during WW II, and it was not unpopular. It was juat a fact for that generation, when you graduate High School, as a male, you have four choices of service (after the creation of the Air Force), or you go to College. Why College, why was college such an exception used by many of the people who could go to college? If there was a need for officers, during WW II college graduates were sent to three months of hell, and became officers... this survives today in the form of Officer Candidate School. If any of you chose to join the army today, with a college degree as an officer, you woudl go to OCS, otherwise also known as knife and fork school. In the US Military the other route is for NCOs to apply to OCS.

Now Korea was such an emergency that draftees ended in the thick of it, fairly fast. It was the cold war and people understood it, but in many ways that war has been forgotten, as well as a seed of resistance to the draft. There were things that were still done, and many of those vets came home, just like their parents, and went to college with the GI Bill... the WW II Draft, the GI Bill was a ticket to the middle class. Hence being drafted was accepted by most people.

Now during the early days of Nam you still had a draft people... why did it take eight long years for the draft to become an issue? Those who do learn their history will miss it. You came out of school and were drafted, and served in places like Europe or the United States. The heavy lifting was being done by Actie Duty Brigades and Divisions. By 1966 the back of that active duty force was starting to break, why? Repeated deployments and long deployments led to many officers (Mid career company level) and senior enlisted to leave the service... if this sounds familiar it should. So by '66 a decision was made to send draftees to the jungles of South East Asia.

Now there are two things you all have to remember... resistance to this was not yet with us... it two two deployment cycles for this to sink in (and Tet helped)... the draftees, just as our national guard today, were receiving subtandard equipment and training. While it takes 18 months to make a combat trooper in the regular army, draftees were often sent to the jungle from bootcamp. Boot Camp companies became full training companies. A cold shiver went down my back when Rumsfeld earlier this year said, well we are going to cut down deployments to nine months... those who know their history realized immediately this was the year a draftee owed the military, three months boot camp, nine months in country... that was the 1966 plan.

Now when it truly led to a revolt was when it fully affected the middle class. Staying in school became your way out, mostly the older you were the higher your draft number would be. This bred resentment, and rightly so.

So what does this have to do with today? The 1941 draft was an anomaly in US History as drafts tend not to be popular. Our army has relied on profesional soldiers for most of its history... they are at a crux today. they are not meeting standards. They have already lowered the entry standards to the regular army. Rumor has it that the McNammmara Kids program is back on... heck they are now accepting people given a choice by the judge, prison or army... they stopped doing this in the 1990s.

So lets review the options here that are present to our overextended military and how you can deal with them in a PRACTICAL way. (As much as I want to bring the troops home now, I choose to live in reality and know it won't happen)

1.- Continue to lower standards... will further break the army... how do you deal with this? Here is your talking point

The Republicans are bad for defense, look at how they are destroying a top of the line army given to them by Democrats.

2.- Hire Mercs: Believe it or not this is being considered... and going to other countries to recruit is exactly that hiring Mercs. Trust me folks, Mercs are loyal to money not country...

Once this becomes public knowledge emphasize how they are destroying the army and how bad they are for defense. Also emphasize Mercs are loyal to money, not the Constitution. If they are paid enough, they will open fire on US.

3.- Implementing a Universal Draft.

Yes I know how some people think this is so wrong and all of that... this is NOW a real thing, as lowering standards, extending Tours of Duty and getting people from jail into the army IS the first stage... so it is here in many ways here.

Things to do:

Teach kids about CO status and how to go around getting it. This alone will start to raise the level of consciousness among kids, this is coming... this is how you fight it.

Talking points:

The back of the army is broken due to poor REPUBLICAN planning

Republicans are bad for defense

Republicans are dangerous to our collective security.

See the pattern?

Good...

I will also contend that this will bring the now we opose the war mases to active oposition, as it will bring this war to the living room in the same ways Vietnman was brought to the living room by Tet and the deaths of many a draftee. When yuo review the history of the oposition to teh war, nobody cared as long as line units did the fighting and dying... people started to care when it was their sons and daughters... and yes this has been the pattern of Drafts in the United States, starting wiht the Draft Riots of 1863... the 1941 draft was an exception... for very good reasons, mind you.

Do I want to see any more kids die? And do I think it is somehow acceptable for a regular troop to die over a draftee? NO, their lives are just as valuable... but the reality is the army is resisting for very good military reasons, but the situation has forced us down that path...

So I will take the anger and the hate this will engender, and the fear.. for this will definitely wake up joe six pack from the survivor induced slumber.

[flamin lib]

1. Very good! But I must say that I'm not all that opposed to a

draft.

I was drafted in 1969 and didn't enjoy it a bit. However, looking back it accomplished three things:

1) It got Mom & Dad America involved in the anti war movement. My Mom was all for killin' them commies until her little boy got to take part!

2) The short timers are a good watch dog for the career soldiers. If not for the short timers we wouldn't have known about free-fire zones and a lot of other stuff that happened.

3) It got the youth of America involved in politics. You start paying attention when you know the bastards can send you places with bullets and stuff flying around.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Many of us have come to the same conclussion

but we have gotten flamed by many others, which tells us, it will lead to a mass mobilization

[Mandate My Ass]

3. "We must destroy the village to save the village."

Same shit different day.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. What part of the draft is already here you are having a problem

comprehending?

Or would you rather have Salvadorans, Nicaraaguans and Peruvians do the fighting so you don't have to deal with this?

The troops ain't coming home, not under the PNAC Plan

Then again you don't seem to have a problem with line units doing the heavy lifting since they signed for it (never mind this is an economic draft)

Nor do you have a workable alternative based on REALITY

[Mandate My Ass]

5. Yeah so let's give them more troops

the one thing they need but dare not ask for to fulfill their PNAC dreams. They'll get everything they want handed to them on a silver platter...yeah, that'll show 'em not to start illegal wars anymore.:eyes:

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. REALSITIC ALTERNATIVES

the draft is ALREADY HERE, deal with it... wake up and smell the coffee... the moment they lowered standards and started accepting prisnoers directly from prison (with military experience) in exchange for a parole, this is scrapping the botom of the barrel and the first step to a draft.

So tell me what WILL YUO DO.. be realistic, no pie in the sky options

You are the one not getting it.. what you are currently doing is NOT bringing the troops home

[Mandate My Ass]

8. blah blah blah blah

On second thought maybe you're got something there, sending more troops will bring the troops home.

DEAD

[Name removed]

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[flamin lib]

15. Sorry, I tend to disagree. The PNACers got everything they

want because it was somebody else's problem. If it were Mom & Dad America's kids being shot at we wouldn't be there to start with or at least the war mongers would be taking some heat.

As long as it is an all volunteer military the general populace ignores the carnage because they don't have a stake in it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. This is the conclusion many of us have reached

and as I keep pointing out the first stages are here already... prison populations are being canvased and kids are beign given a choice, the army or jail...

[Jose Diablo]

7. When citizens have to fight the wars the leaders start

then the citizens get real pissed-off if the war started, is not for a good reason. Protecting the economic well being of the elite is not a good reason in the perspective of practically all citizens.

The only way these PNACers can get away with their plans for a continuous war, is to hire mercs. But that takes money, a lot of money. As long as our war-hawk Dems keep authorizing the money, then the PNACers are gonna continue.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. PNACers re startting to get slowed down

and more and more are saying what we have been saying now for years... Durbin, GITMO and NAZIs...

So we may have turned a corner... but unfortunately until the masses who think war is a football game and go nuts when bombs go off on CNN have to think that maybe Johnny is there and he may not come back? Then they will start thinking, hmm...

As is we must challenge them, they keep saying this is like WW II... OKay put up or shut up... WW II people suffered, whether at the front lines or here... did you know most people have not paid any cost for this war outside of military families.... excuse us as we would like to share in our wealth.

[Mandate My Ass]

11. Ah so this is about spreading the misery around

Everybody in this country is paying in one way or another for this war. You want to put more young lives on the chopping block so that somebody somewhere might at some time might see something disturbing on TV "news" and then some magical shift will occur and it'll all be over.

That's some good stuff you're smoking. The war is not being televised except for the sanitized images the defense contractor-owned TV stations will permit to be shown.

Advocating deliberately throwing lives away in what we know is a criminal invasion of a defenseless country and its blameless citizens is a sick and twisted.

[Name removed]

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[Jose Diablo]

16. "You want to put more young lives on the chopping block"

No. The point of a 'citizen army' is to make sure that every war that is fought is fought for a good reason. There are some wars that need to be fought, but Iraq is not one that should have even been considered to be worthy. If the leaders had been honest about Iraq and said we want the oil, I doubt they would have lasted more than 30 more days in office.

Now another point of citizen armies, they can never be used to overthrow the legal government. Tin pot dictators cannot use them to protect themselves from irate citizens. In effect, the leaders MUST do right to the citizens, or else.

This 'professional' army is really a bad idea, IMO.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. This profesional army has been with us since the profesional

army was created in the 1790s, again learn history.

As to the draft, it took draftees going to South Vietnam, it will take this for the we do not supoprt the war but we are too comfy in our couches crowd to do something about it.

Or tell me exactly how well has the staus quo been working for ya?

As to young lives on the line? They ARE on the line... but it is okay, they are only active duty troops and gosh golly they signed for it... that is the underlying attitude, which parallels the attitude of most Americans after Tonkin... it is only the profesional army going to what's the name of that place dear? Oh Tonkin? Where is that dear?

I dunno...

Will Johnny go there?

Oh no Marge he is going to Europe for a year, he'll become a man and then come home help with the grocery store.

[flamin lib]

20. Ya' know, that's exactly what happened in Vietnam. When

Mom & Dad America got tired of seeing war footage on TV during the evening meal it ended. Nixon finally said screw it and pulled the military out.

[Toots]

12. I agree with much of what you say and I was drafted in mid sixties

I was not sent straight to Nam right out of Basic training though. After Basic came AIT or Advanced Individual Training it was about the same length of time as Basic and it was at Ft Polk LA or as they called it then Little Vietnam. Next I was sent to a five week course at Ft. Knox KY to learn how to drive and care for track vehicles. Then it was Vietnam. Still I would say it was not much training but apparently enough, I'm here. I think the GI Bill was one of the most important things ever to happen in America and would love to see more Americans able to take advantage of it. The very second Bush* would sign into law a bill re-authorizing the draft Mothers would be in the streets demanding an end to our occupation of Iraq and our troops back home where they belong. The very second, it would not take further war by this Administration to get the anti war movement really worked up. Threaten American mothers with their child's life and you will see people wake up in a hurry. Without these "Wars for Profit" the military is not a bad place. One certainly learns how to get along with folks from different parts of the country and I would venture to say a certain "work ethic" is learned there which is sadly lacking in American workers today. America would benefit I believe from this.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Unfortunately by 67. 68 the traiing you got was slashed radically

but unfortunately, given the history of this country it will take a draft.

For the record, the GI Bill has been defanged... to the point that it is still used by recruiters but nothing like it once was.

You want to make a difference for our current generation of warrriors? Demand a WW II type GI bill with no expiration date and enough money to go to college, or free college for vets, same dif different day... we owe them that much, and this should be made retroactive to benefit all troops who have served in an active war zone going back to Grenada.

[flamin lib]

17. GI Bill! Here here!

The most successful social program ever. Even more successful than S security. It literally made money for the federal budget by increasing the amount of taxes the educated vets paid.

We owe these people.

[DistressedAmerican]

22. I Second The Nod To The GI Bill! Wildly Successful Until Gutted!

[DistressedAmerican]

21. Excellent Post. I Recently Began To Think The Same Way...

I have always opposed the draft at a conceptual level. However, I have begun to realize (slowly) that American has a nearly unlimited "tolerance" for this war as long as it is kept far from them.

What folks seem to miss is that we are bleeding to death. Literally and figuratively!

I hear a lot of people react strongly to the idea. I can relate to that. The "D" word scares the shit out of me as well. Especially now. But, letting the poor and minority community bear the brunt of our collective foreign policy is WRONG.

Everyone that has that reaction immediately says something like Not for this guy and his war. Although I never hear those folks that say they would never fight in this war say they have stopped paying their taxes.

I have thread in GD right now asking how many would be willing to get arrested protesting this war and can hardly get a reply.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3870515

Several have stepped up. But it sure does not sound like a revolution in the making!

We must rethink our current course of action. The status quo will guarantee more of the same.

Preparing now for what may be a numerical inevitability anyway is the only honest and smart approach. Thank you for the recommendations!

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. I hate to think this is what it will take but unfortunately this is

what it will take

[DistressedAmerican]

24. Sad indeed. Kick!

[BrotherBuzz]

25. Small detail - but the draft actually started in 1940

My uncle was drafted in late 1940 and actually entered the army in January 1941. Oh, he was one of those OCS candidates you mentioned. He applied to, and was accepted to the brand new Fort Sill Field Artillery OCS (class number 01 - 41) and was commisioned a 2nd louie in October 1941, two months before Pearl Harbor. He retired as a Major General yet never attened any college, unless you count war college. Not bad for a high school dropout, but I digress. Good post!

[The Magistrate]

26. An Excellent Piece, Comrade!