The "Mom Thing"

I think in 1973. Almost fifty but close. Charles Rangle proposed reinstatement a few years ago. Don't get me wrong. Universal Conscription of the unwilling is a bad idea. Been there done that. It was a nightmare. We used to call them "Remington's Raiders" As in the typewriter. Or we got Mcnamara's hundred thousand. Cost Effective and government does not compute.:biggrin:
 
Mongo said:
Their views would have to change. A program such as this would be totally cost prohibitive. A summer camp for adults that lasts two years. I cannot imagine any enlisted specialty for which one can obtain any level of competence in much less than two year, many even more. So about the time we get them trained enough to earn their salray, we release them? I guess it would be great for the civilian job market. Social welfare at its best.
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The IDF does it (2 year mandatory service), they don't seem to be running a summer camp.
 
Luigi59 said:
The IDF does it (2 year mandatory service), they don't seem to be running a summer camp.
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Wow, what an utterly ludicrous comparison. Our force structures, population base, culture, and capabilities are so wildly disparate that I can only wonder if this was a serious comment.
 
scoutpilot said:
Wow, what an utterly ludicrous comparison. Our force structures, population base, culture, and capabilities are so wildly disparate that I can only wonder if this was a serious comment.
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Comparing 2 years of military service to summer camp is ludicrous.

Go back and re-read it, slowly this time.

Better yet, perhaps you need to just put my comments on "ignore" rather than waste time reading them, as they obviously are so far beneath what you deem to be relevant.

Apparntly you have become the new "mod wannabe" here, deeming whose posts are ludicrous and whose are not.

We are all blessed by your participation, we all await your next post with great anticipation. :rolleyes:
 
Okay, 4 million young Americans turn 18 years old each year. $40,000 per year for two years to feed, clothe, shelter, and train (read babysit) each of
them. By my calculations, that would require approximately 2/3 of our current total DoD budget. A heavy price for typists and MPs.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, the American public has no stomach for cannon fodder. UAVs require a lot more technical expertise than holding a radar gun or changing a typewriter ribbon.
 
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The public should have no stomach for the way DOD throws around money. Talk a walk around the Pentagon these days, big screen TVs, food court....it isn't a department, it's a shopping mall. How many millions or billions have gone into this? Buy a big screen TV for some Assistant Secretary of Defense, but cut how many E-3s?
 
Luigi59 said:
Comparing 2 years of military service to summer camp is ludicrous.

Go back and re-read it, slowly this time.

Better yet, perhaps you need to just put my comments on "ignore" rather than waste time reading them, as they obviously are so far beneath what you deem to be relevant.

Apparntly you have become the new "mod wannabe" here, deeming whose posts are ludicrous and whose are not.

We are all blessed by your participation, we all await your next post with great anticipation. :rolleyes:
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Military reality is apparently offensive. I don't have a remedy for that.

To compare the U.S. population base and culture to that of Israel for the purposes of furthering an argument about compulsory service in America is, in point of fact, ludicrous. It requires for too many assumptions and false corollaries to be worth our time.

The IDF has only about 150,000 personnel on active duty. Of males alone, they have only 1.2 million from which to draw. Yearly, about 50,000 come up for eligibility by virtue of turning 18. This is all occurring in a country which literally has armed guerilla and uniformed enemy forces in every direction, from their neighbors to the regional hegemon of Iran. Their conscription system is a matter of their nation's very survival.

How can we even begin to compare that nation to the US, where conscripting even every-other 18 year old would quadruple the size of the active Army? Nevermind that we'd lose half their enlistment to IET. We are not a force of 18-year-old draftees with Galils on their shoulders.

If you remember, we tried a draft for a few decades. It turns out that we are far better off without it.
 
scoutpilot said:
If you remember, we tried a draft for a few decades. It turns out that we are far better off without it.
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And yet a good chunk of the Greatest Generation was drafted.

A draft would certainly connect the general population with a military it continues to drift from, however, I'm not sure how excited the volunteers would be to serve with someone who really REALLY did not want to be there.
 
LineInTheSand said:
And yet a good chunk of the Greatest Generation was drafted.

A draft would certainly connect the general population with a military it continues to drift from, however, I'm not sure how excited the volunteers would be to serve with someone who really REALLY did not want to be there.
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Haven't military historians pretty much determined that only about 10% of the American soldiers in combat in WWII fired their weapons.

I have served during the draft era and I would not wish it on anyone.
 
LineInTheSand said:
And yet a good chunk of the Greatest Generation was drafted.

A draft would certainly connect the general population with a military it continues to drift from, however, I'm not sure how excited the volunteers would be to serve with someone who really REALLY did not want to be there.
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Yes! And why was that? Not to connect anyone with the services, that's for sure. It was for a purpose, as you well know. A great number of the greatest generation served in a segregated military. Women couldn't serve alongside men in most cases. In the decades following, we've determined that that military wasn't an optimal solution either.
 
I agree with MONGO:

The Draft up until 1971 was a nightmare. People that didn't want to be there and those that wanted to get out for any reason made it Hell. Fire a weapon? They didn't know what one was or which way was downrange. Buddy had to get a Military Drivers License for his qualification and jumped out of the vehichile when he was told to drive a standard shift. "What are you going to do to me?. Send me home?? Then again he kept all the VC out of Texas.:thumb:
 
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