Uncle Sam will soon want your kids!

[Gimpy]

October 4, 2004

By David H. Hackworth

Recently, when John Kerry brought up the possibility of a return to the draft, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld was quick to respond that Kerry was full of it.

But my take is that Kerry is right on the mark. Not only because Rummy has been flat wrong on every major military call regarding Iraq, but because this is a war that won?t be won by smart weapons or the sledgehammer firepower we see every night on the tube.


Right now ? with both our regular and Reserve soldiers stretched beyond the breaking point ? our all-volunteer force is tapping out. If our overseas troop commitments continue at the present rate or climb higher, there won?t be enough Army and Marine grunts to do the job. And thin, overworked units, from Special Forces teams to infantry battalions, lose fights.

Clearly, this war against worldwide, hardcore Islamic believers will be a massive military marathon, the longest and most far-flung in our country?s history. By Christmas, more troops could be needed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but wherever the radical Islamic movement is growing stronger, from the Horn of Africa to Morocco, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen and across Europe ? remember Spain?! ? to Asia.

Accordingly, we need to bring our ground-fighting and support units to about the strength they were before the Soviet Union imploded, especially since the proper ratio of counterinsurgent-to-insurgent in places like the Middle East should be around 15 to 1. You don?t have to be a Ph.D. in military personnel to conclude we need more boots on the ground.

Most of our warriors ? who are mainly from blue-collar families from Small Town, USA ? have few political connections and few conduits though which they can effectively sound off. So when they get screwed over by a desperate Pentagon?s makeshift policies ? such as the ?Stop Loss? program that?s holding over large numbers of our servicemen and -women well beyond their contractually agreed-upon terms of enlistment, or the widespread calling up of out-of-shape, ill-trained citizen soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve ? these ?volunteers? salute, suck it up and lay their lives on the line.

But like elephants, they won?t forget that they are ?backdoor draftees,? as Kerry and John McCain call them. Which means that when their hitches are up, they won?t be rushing to re-enlist. And they?re also warning their younger brothers, sisters and pals to stay away from recruiting stations.

Although Pentagon puff artists insist they?re making quota, recruiters are already saying it would be easier to find $100 bills on the sidewalk outside a homeless shelter than fill their enlistment quotas, even with the huge bonuses now being paid.

So the draft ? which will include both boys and girls this time around ? is a no-brainer in ?05 and ?06.

Oh sure, the Pentagon suits will fight it. Volunteers tend to go with the flow and seldom blow the whistle on military stupidity, flawed tactics and self-serving leadership. And draftees don?t hesitate to make waves and tell the truth. Not to mention influential citizens with draft-age kids who?ll soon be demanding an answer to the same type of hard question their moms and dads shouted during the Vietnam War: ?Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today??

Rumsfeld, in fact, has already kicked off the anti-draft campaign by denigrating the draftees who fought in Vietnam. The SecDef, who prefers sycophants who don?t ask questions, recently stated that Vietnam-era draftees added ?No value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services ... because ... it took an enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone.?

Wrong once again. I led draftees for almost four years in Vietnam and for several years during the Korean War. If well-led, there are no finer soldiers. Ask the Nazis, the Japanese and the Reds in Korea and in Vietnam, where ?no value? draftees cleaned their clocks in fight after fight.

Israel, a country that has lived under the barrel of the Islamic terrorist gun for decades, has the most combat-experienced counterinsurgent force in the world ? and boy and girl draftees are its major resource.

Count on it. We will follow their lead.

***************

--Eilhys England contributed to this column.

Col. David H. Hackworth (USA Ret.) is SFTT.org co-founder and Senior Military Columnist for DefenseWatch magazine. For information on his many books, go to his home page at Hackworth.com, where you can sign in for his free weekly Defending America. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. His newest book is ?Steel My Soldiers? Hearts.? ? 2004 David H. Hackworth. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.

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[Boats]

Gimpy,

I knew it - it had to come. Too many things are going on and not enough manpower to cover all the bases. They will strip this country bare during the process.

Draftee's are coming again and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it - short of cut and running back home which I feel isn't going to happen anytime soon.

All we need now is something to happen in NK and that will overload the system big time. Who knows they may call us back up to defend the country since everyone else is gone off to war.

This isn't funny and will have long lasting repercussions.

[SuperScout]

Just to prove once again how out of touch and out of date poor ol' Hacky is, he missed the vote yesterday in the US House that defeated a Democrat proposal to reinstate the draft. Galloping senility and silly grandstanding have become Hack's hallmarks. He hasn't bothered to check the latest recruiting and retention figures, which show that all branches have met or exceeded their quota. It's the Democrats trying to play the 'fear card', thinking they can rattle the 'security moms' into voting for the Flim-Flam/Flip-Flop Man and his pretty boy running mate what's his name.

All anybody with a brain has to do is read the respective party's positions on Veterans and Defense Issues, as presented in the Oct. issue of the VFW magazine. It will show, irrefuteably, that the the Demo's are woozies, and haven't a clue about national defense.

[b3196]

I try not to post here..... .but...., Well said Brice
Bob K

[Gimpy]

You know.............that "stuff" Texas is FULL OF!

What are the influences of that pseudo, fantasy land, twilight zone, outer limits section of Rio Linda land down there in Texas doing to your very low level of brain cells there SuperSilly??? Are you really THAT unable to grasp reality???

The U.S. economy has always been a significant factor in the success rate of military recruiters. Until about three years ago, when the economy was better and young people perceived more civilian opportunities for employment, recruiters had a difficult time, and several of the branches of the armed forces failed to meet their enlistment quotas.

This allowed recruiters to convince Congress into budgeting more money for recruiting, enlistment bonuses and military pay raises, and during the last three years, while unemployment has risen and the economy has taken a dive, all branches of the military have met their enlistment quotas.

Now that Bush is continually preaching how WELL the economy is doing (even though it IS still a "jobless" recovery without any measure of real wage growth among the few low wage jobs that have been created) if a slight improvement is soon perceived by the public, that could begin to make it difficult again for recruiters to meet their quotas, especially for first-time enlistments.


The negative news about the mess and developments in Iraq, including information about casualties and dissatisfaction among the troops, will increase the reluctance of young people to enlist.

But even more important are the effects that war and the deployments to Iraq are having on members of the military who would normally be counted upon to reenlist.

Stars and Stripes, which is funded funded by the Pentagon, conducted an informal survey in August 2003 (that's slightly over a year ago for you math challenged folks in Rio Linda!) that drew responses from 1,935 military members throughout Iraq. Half said their unit's morale was low and that they do not plan to reenlist. The article on the survey that appeared in Stars and Stripes stated, "In the past, enlistment rates tended to drop after conflicts, but many defense experts and noncommissioned officers have warned of the potential for a historically high exodus, particularly of reservists."


The head of the 205,000-member Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, told USA Today, "Retention is what I am most worried about. It is my No. 1 concern." The Army National Guard, which has a significant number of troops on active duty, was expected to fall about 15% short of its recruiting goal of 62,000 soldiers for fiscal year 2004. Other military branches met their goals for 2003 and so far in 2004, but that is in part because some military members had the end of their enlistment terms involuntarily extended under a special "stop loss" order from the Pentagon.

Based on the reported comments from troops who are still in Iraq or have just returned , the exodus is going to create some serious extra pressure on recruiters to find new enlistees during the coming fiscal year.

The remaining factor that is looming over everything else is the possibility of additional large deployments of U.S. soldiers to intervene in countries besides Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Bush administration has asserted the right to use preemptive force in any part of the world that it believes (regardless of any credible proof ) is a source of terrorism or other threat to the U.S., regardless of whether or not the rest of the world agrees and would be willing to help with additional troops.

And it's now becoming clear that, as many of us suspected (and a lot of folks in Rio Linda still deny! ), claims of threats based on evidence that doesn't really exist could be used as a pretext for military action. Countries currently high on the possible target list include Syria, Iran and North Korea, and others like Colombia, the Philippines are also on the "list". As I'm sure you already know with your limited ability to "grasp" the "obvious".

All this, while so many young and unknowing Americans and immigrants ( more & more who are not even U.S. citizens) from poor and working class youth, die on the frontlines hoping to become students when their enlistments are finished and get decent jobs that will be unavailable because the Bush administration supports companys that send the good jobs overseas????.


The psychological and social costs of such dreadful contradictions cannot be overcome by patriotic zeal. My comments are NOT......repeat NOT......to be misconstrued or misrepresented as being NON-SUPPOTRIVE of our troops in service anywhere in the world! I have always, and will contnue to support their heroic and honorable efforts whenever they are sent into harms way! But, this administration has lied about virtually everything they've said since they've been in office. Military "enlistment" quotas are just one more for the "pile" of that plentiful Texas commodity.............HORSE MANURE!

[SuperScout]

As if not content to try to frighten anybody gullible or uninformed enough to read their biased drivel, now they're trotting out the class warfare card. If quick check of the demographics of our beloved armed forces will show that they are not the poor, unemployed, downtrodden, woebegone folks who just wandered in to the recruiter's office. Our armed forces are better educated, more motivated, and generally smarter than their non-military counterparts. And the overriding reason that non-citizens have enlisted is a simple act of gratitude for being in this great nation, an act that the little liberals have taken for granted, and manisfest their ingratitude by continual whining and carping.

[Seascamp]

Tiz going to be long, long war gents. When the Whabbi hydra finishes devouring it?s principal benefactor and decades-old pitchman; The Family Saud, and then attempts to grab up Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar and Oman, Iraq will but the beginning chapter in the voluminous book of WWIII. We can fiddle-fart around with TJ?s sperm of the moment ?plans? but one thing for certain is that the Whabbi hydra was let out of the cage well over a decade and a half ago, has now arrived in full fury, is damn hungry and is blood lusting. All that equipment and capability TJ has been so much against forever is turning out to be the right stuff in this ongoing war. Plus it is saving many lives that would otherwise be squandered by stupid Senators who could give a rat?s ass less about anything but their all-consuming political ambition.
As to a draft, we?ll see what the future holds, but if the Wahbbis have their way, we?re looking right down the barrel of a global confrontation and possibly a few nukes going off. We best be prepared I?m thinking and trash can this KC crapola and false aspirations being set. (KC as in ?Kerry Correct?)

Scamp

[Gimpy]

Biased drivel????? :cd: :cd: :cd:

I suppose the "Stars & Stripes" and the head of the Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, are guilty of "biased drivel"?????

What a joke you are becoming in your senility there SuperSenile!

[SuperScout]

So the general's wringing his hands about an event that hasn't happened yet, and may not happen at all? Is the retention level plummeting periously now? No. Are recruiting and retention goals not being met? No. Is he probably bucking for more money for recruiting and retention operations? Yes. Methinks his worry beads are getting rubbed way too early. And since he didn't cite, nor did you cut and paste any spedific figures, it's all conjecture, right?

[Jerry D]

Hey Look Ya'all I can cut and paste with the best of them too Here is a good article on the so called Draft being re-instated and by WHOM it is being sponserd by
today the House will vote on a Democratic bill to reinstate the draft. President Bush and Republicans oppose a draft and seek defeat of this bill. Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edwards wrongly claim it is Republicans who support this, yet it is John Kerry who said he may be open to a draft. Below is more information about this bill, who sponsored it, what Sen. Kerry and Sen. Edwards are saying as well as the truth about President Bush's position regarding it. We need you to call talk radio shows and write letters to the editor. Let people know that it is not Republicans who support this bill, it is the Democrats.

DEMOCRATS PUSH
DRAFT IN CONGRESS
President Bush Opposes Draft And Republicans
Will Ensure Defeat Of Bill, Kerry Open To Idea
__________________________________________________ __

JUST WHO IS PROPOSING A DRAFT?

Democrat Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) Introduced The "Universal National Service Act Of 2003" To Reinstate Military Draft. "A BILL To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." (H.R. 163, Introduced 1/7/03 By Rep. Charles Rangel)

? Today, House Of Representatives Will Vote On Rangel's Proposal, Which House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) Vows Will Receive "Very Little Congressional Support." "Later today, the House of Representatives will debate and vote on H.R. 163, the Universal National Service Act - commonly known as the Reinstate the Draft Bill. There is very little Congressional support for reinstating the draft." (House Armed Services Committee, "House To Vote On And Reject Military Draft Bill," Press Release, 10/5/04)

Democrat Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) Has Introduced Identical Military Draft Legislation. "A BILL To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." (S. 89, Introduced 1/7/03 By Sen. Ernest Hollings)

KERRY AND EDWARDS CLAIM IT'S REPUBLICANS WHO
WANT DRAFT, BUT KERRY IS OPEN TO DRAFT

Kerry Raised Possibility Draft Is Returning Under Bush. "Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, citing the war in Iraq and other trouble spots in the world, raised the possibility Wednesday that a military draft could be reinstated if voters re-elect President Bush. ... Answering a question about the draft that had been posed at a forum with voters, Kerry said: ?If George Bush were to be re-elected, given the way he has gone about this war and given his avoidance of responsibility in North Korea and Iran and other places, is it possible? I can't tell you.'" (Mary Dalrymple, "Kerry Raises Possibility That Military Draft Could Return If Bush Is Re-Elected," The Associated Press, 9/22/04)

Edwards Hinted Draft Would Return Under President Bush. "Edwards drew his biggest applause from the audience, which was heavy on union members and laid-off workers, when he responded to a question from a woman who said that her 23-year-old son recently graduated from college, and that she is worried about a draft being instituted for the war in Iraq. ?There will be no draft when John Kerry is president,' Edwards said, to applause and a standing ovation." (Jim VandeHei, "Kerry Accuses Bush Of Dishonesty On Iraq," The Washington Post, 9/16/04)

Yet Kerry Told Reporter That If Large Mobilization Is Needed, Draft Is "Only Fair Way To Do It." REPORTER: "Senator, some in your party have called for reinstating the draft. Do you think that is a good idea?" KERRY: "Not at this moment. I don't. If we had a need for a general mobilization at some time in the future, then I think that's the only fair way to do it." (WLVI's "Keller At Large," Interview Taped 12/2/03, Aired 9/26/04)

ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN CLEAR:
PRESIDENT BUSH OPPOSES DRAFT

Secretary Rumsfeld Called Allegations "Absolute Nonsense." "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld heatedly denied yesterday that the military plans to bring back the draft and boost reserves and National Guard callups after the November election. ?That is absolute nonsense,' Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. ?It's absolutely false that anyone in this administration is considering reinstituting the draft.'" (Richard Sisk, "No Draft, No Extra Troops - Rummy," [New York] Daily News, 9/24/04)

Vice President Cheney Said Rumors Were "Hogwash." "And the notion that somebody's peddling out there that there is a secret plan to reinstitute the draft, hogwash, not true." (NBC's "Nightly News," 9/29/04)

President Bush: "We Don't Need The Draft." "No, we're not going - we don't need the draft. Look, the all-volunteer Army is working. ... I know Senator McCain and I agree on this issue for certain, the all-volunteer Army works." (President George W. Bush, Remarks At Okaloosa-Walton College, Niceville, FL, 8/10/04)