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Whats up wit hall of this rumbilings from the right wing blogs and talking heads about bringing back the draft.....Is there a felling on the far right that the republicans have been in power too long or something? This has to be the dumbist idea I have ever heard from both a political and a military stand point. So why this new pet issue?
Road you seem to be prety sane whats up on this one?
As an ex professional soldier of ten years I can assure you that the professional soldiers in the world do _not_ want a conscript in the same grid square. It's an issue of trust. I'm not saying that a conscripted man can't or won't fight as well and as hard as a volunteer..... But the conscript got there because he is trying to avoid something else he didn't want to do. I prefer to have chaps around me that said " I can do this, I'm in"..... But that's me... ;)
So, unless it's world war three and, to quote Platoon, "I need every swinging dick in the field" then conscription is the watering down of your fighting force if for no other reason than there will always be an "us and them" feeling in the ranks.
Tiger Shark: haveing spent some time as a military spoues taht is the feeling i get from most of the current and exmilitary. It seems that its only the chickenhawlks who have never served a day in their life that want a draft.
Because then it's a lottery..... and everyone loves to think they will _win_ the lottery.... Unfortunately.... very few do and there lives would probably be better used back "home"...
IMO, leave the soldiering to those that are prepared to do it _properly_! Leave the rest at home to do what they do best...... (that's not a derogatory comment).
Well, I haven't personally met one soldier or marine that was actually happy to go to Iraq. One thing that I learned in my para-military experience is that once you're in, there's something called team work and we don't really differentiate between who wanted to be there or not. The point is to do the job right and get the hell out, everyone. That includes blacks, hispanics, middle class, poor, reserves and what have you.
I see the left using the draft as a political scare tactic to win votes in their favor and some rights thinking a draft would do the populace some good.
Some would argue that a large percentage of the current volunteer forces are persons with less economic options or academic interest. So, would more wealthy college bound youth be in the conscription military? Does this conflict with the stereotype of the "right"?
come on road closed...every one floating trial bllones on this or on the right (the head of the slective service, verious congress men, verious talking heads.). No one on the left is realy pushing it, i only know about the push because im a member of my local draft board.
In fact, some info a little more pertanint to this group, if bush gets another four years they are going t otry and push through a skill based slective draft looking for computer profeshionals.
Glad I only have one and a half more years left for being drafted. I think that I would do ok in the millitary, but its not somewhere I want to be. I am sure that if the time came and I was drafted, I would probably fight for America, but I dont think that I would be really happy doing it. I can really understand tigersharks point about professional soldiers not wanting the draft.Quote:
Originally posted here by bballad
In fact, some info a little more pertanint to this group, if bush gets another four years they are going t otry and push through a skill based slective draft looking for computer profeshionals.
We do have a crisis on our hands in the military now..there are not enough troops t odo the jobs they are forced to do by this administration...we have bitten off more then our military can chew, the answer is not a draft though, the answer starts with doing something that no recent president besides clinton has done, give the grunts a pay raise...make the army a competitive career wit h what a kid out of school can get. From there we can stop the max diployment of the reserves and try to keep our troops out of situations that they are not trained to deal with (iraq). But treating our troops like trash the way our current administration is doing (cut in pay, back to back hazerd duty, stop order rufesing to let people out when there enlistment is up..ect) is the wrong way to support our military.
Amnesiac: What you say does appear to be a more prevalent trend today than it used to be. In my time in I remember two specific things pertinent to this conversation.
The first was a friend of mine. My units fighting strength was very small, (@ 100 compliment), but due to the nature of the unit we were armed, equipped and had the communication ability of a unit 3 times our size so we had technicians seconded to us to maintain the equipment. In war the technicians would not necessarily follow us into the war zone so for some it seemed like a nice post - many had no boss in their own trade - ;). Ollie was a great guy but he didn't realize when he volunteered that Northern Ireland was certainly a place that the "tradesmen" would follow us to..... This led to a discussion that really ended in the fact that Ollie only joined up to get a trade - he had never contemplated having to actually use a weapon. Being on the unit I was on this was something of a shock - that _anyone_ could join any branch of the military and not understand that there is always a possibility that you will be required to fight - to the death if necessary - when told to do so.......
The other was the Falklands War. I clearly remember the news that the Argentinians had invaded and kicked the 20 or so Royal Marines off the islands. Everyone on my unit felt the same - Let's go and take them back, now!!! My units reason for being formed was to take and hold a forward enemy airfield until relieved.... "An Airfield too Far" and all that.... The main thrust of the attack to regain the Falklands took place on the west of the islands away from Port Stanley. It was deemed by the higher ups that my unit would be perfectly suited to assault the airport at Port Stanley which was on a small peninsula connected by a narrow ithsmus on the extreme east of the island and that the position would be defensible and cut off the Argies who were sneaking C-130 supply planes in at night. The plan came down and we were confined to our home airfield. Everyone without exception was all fired up - we would be the first British unit to parachute into action since World War II, ( or Suez, I think the paras jumped in there - I don't recall which but it was a long time ago.... ;)). Then they issued the wills to be filled out. The entire unit went noticably quiet.... You see, we had been having one salient little point being drummed into us for years - 30% of you will be dead within 48 hours of "P"-hour, (the moment you begin leaving the aircraft). The "silence" was deafening as people realized that even if they survive, 1/3rd of all their friends will be dead in a few days - (you know _everyone_ on a unit of just 100 men). That period of introspection lasted about 24 hours and, to a man, everyone was back to the "OK, lets go kill some Argies" attitude just as they had been 2 days before. Nothing had changed. As it was, even though we were "gee'd up" three times - containers packed, parachutes drawn, fitted and checked in readiness for a flight directly from England to a point 400' above Port Stanley airfield we ever went. The weather forecast always had winds in excess of 18 knots and our parachute limit was 13 knots, (even though many of us had jumped at 20 knots in training). It was deemed that because of the nature of the Drop Zone, surrounded by the South Atlantic, a simple navigational mistake by the aircrew could place the entire unit in the South Atlantic with winds that high. A dip in the South Atlantic leaves you unable to function in less than a minute, (extremeties cease to function), and dead in a minute or two after that. We were livid!!!! Utterly furious - we bitched moaned and complained to anyone who would listen - and a few that wouldn't.....
You say that people aren't "happy" about going to war today...... Maybe things have changed or maybe people don't realize the commitment you make when you join the military any more. I do know that when I was a soldier, (20+ years ago), we were all volunteers, we were all professional soldiers, (very few got to our unit if they were only signed up for three years - 9 years or more was the norm), and we all wanted to fight. Maybe we were all insecure and wanted to "prove" ourselves - I dunno..... But this attitude you mention certainly does not come from the kind of soldiers I served with..... And not one of them would have wanted a conscript standing next to them if the proverbial poop hit the rotating thingy.......
bballad, the left especially Kerry has been using a draft to scare kids. Any draft attempt by the right is political suicide. If a draft becomes necessary, the populace will rebel and history repeats itself. Some may be toying with the idea and saying things like, "we could use some more Americans" but that doesn't mean it will happen. The military gets pay raises every year based on the inflation rate. Clinton did his best to reduce that as much as possible. It's not a secret that the military cannot sustain more than 1 or 2 major conflicts. It was because of Clinton that the ENTIRE military infrastructure and command structure was changes from large bases filled with personnel to small mobilized units. That thinking didn’t exist before Clinton forced his DO MORE WITH LESS policy.
It was the military that reacted by the severe cut in forces. Clinton didn't offer a plan he just said here is your budget work with it. I don't know how you come to the conclusion that Clinton gave the military a pay raise. He cut funding in all directions and closed dozens of bases. Everyone knew at the time it would hurt the ability of the United States in the long run to mobilize so much and cut funding to permanent bases overseas by hundreds of thousands. Military pay scales are available on the internet through the DOD web sites. There has never been a year when the military did not get a pay raise. They range from 4 percent to 8 percent in some cases. They also pay bonuses to those positions in critical manning status. In addition there are additional pay for combat, specialty skills etc. Top that off with no taxes why you are over there and a war crated up to 800 a month additional pay.
To say this administration had spreads the military too thin is once again not correct. The military had just as much if not more of a time pinging between Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, Turkey, South Korea, UN policing and various other hot spots as they are now. I admit the military is spread thin, it has been for years.
The left all of a sudden starts caring about the workings and red tape of the military? Interesting.
He cut unnsecary bases, he acgnoladged the drop in recrutment and he cut the amount of money that went into the pockets of defense contractors, but he raised the amount of money in the pocket of the regular troops and officers...at the time I was a military spouse, i saw the pay checks and saw the raise.....if this yearly rais that you talk about happens none of us saw it. The fact is clinton raised the pay of the average grunt, bush by cutting hazerd pay and house allounces has droped that pay significantly. Talking to the people we know that are still in we are hearing stories about families haveing to go on food stamps and public aid to make ends meet. I have no idea where you get your info, mine is coming directly from the pay stubs of military personal
tiger most of those taht are truly unhappy are the reservists who should never be used for more then 6 months in the feild at a time (it is now standared for a full 18 months t obe spent in the feild at a shot). But there is a lot of angst and low moral in the regulars as well....when you did the falklands it was a relitivly quick deployment, these guys are doing a year in the feild, two months in teh states a year in the feild, its hardship tour after hardship tour with the hardship pay being cut or eliminated. With the troops in iraq you also have an issue of no clear goal or enemy, its just a low grade policeing operation with no end in sight, a lot of the troops are starting to question the reasons for being there, moral is the lowest its been post vietnam (we have a current all time high AWOL and suicide rates among the troops, a number are running to canada and asking for asylum). They also see the disregard this administration has for the troops and their commanders, when a general says we need more troops in iraq hes fired, when bush wants a photo op they are held away from home for a few more weeks. (My wife would have been on the abraham lincon if not for a career ending injury, every one we know on that boat was pissed that they had to wait for bushes photo op for a week before the could go home.....they could see sandiago but sat there away from there families for an extra week, they had to be ordered to cheer and slute him, and are very pissed taht they are now being blamed for his mission accomplished sign.)
Bush cutting hazard pay and housing allowance would piss me off. Researching. Military familys have always been capable of recieving food stamps. The first couple of years are hard on families until they reach rank, especially Army. You can defend Clinton but he did in fact remove hundreds of thousands from active service. Replacements were not comming in for those leaving. To my knowledge Bush has not cut any military spending outside of research. I remember a thread here not too long ago, all pissed off a a defense budget increase. But I'll did up some facts. If you like, I am rebuilding an exchange database so I have some time.... military pay is public knowledge.
Trust me I know what the initial pay is like for the military, the houseing allounce is the only thing that kept our heads above water while my wife finished OCS and she was at E3 pay at the time. Bush may have increased what we spend on military contractors he has decreased what we spend on troops. As for the clinton reductions...that was forced be not haveing any body enlisting. With no one comeing in to regular army they had to restructure to use the gaurd in more combat roles...this unfortunitly droped the recurtment into the gaurd and reserves.... If you listend to rumsfeild you will see that he also aknolaged this unfortuniate fact of our military and was continuing and expanding on what clinton started..... Personaly I think we need to greatly increases what we pay our troops, its the only way to increase the painfuly low recurtment numbers. The naveys nuke program is a good start, the rest of the branches need to fallow their example.
Wrong my friend. Elistment was halted. You can't have a reduction in force (RIF) and early retirement only to have them imediately replaced by new recruits. The military became much more selective on elistment with sharp cut off quotas. Clinton cut the leadership right of the head of the DOD. Now here is some facts so pay attention. They come directly from the Defence Accounting Service at http://www.dfas.mil/money/milpay/
I am glad you mentioned E-3 because that is what I used. You will note that under Bush military accounting became more accurate in dealing out pay in individual instances based on dudy (assuming you look at todays 2000 century LES vs previous decades.)
E3 with 2 years or more. BAQ Basic Allowance for Quarters was later Changed to BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing) which posted a more accurat pay scale based on geographic area, some areas of the country cost more than others, you see.
These numbers are based on monthly pay
1996 Clinton re-election era
Base - $1074.90
BAQ - $363.00
1998
Base - $1,179.10
BAH - 404.40
HAZ - $150.00
FAMS - $100.00
forgot about hazard pay and family seperation allowance, since I mentioned you get more, in fact Bush added aditional Hazard pay and increased it as you will see later. They have been there since the dawn of time, or at least most of the military history.
2001 Bushy in full swing
Base - $1,307.10
BAH - $421.10
HAZ - $150.00
FAMS - $100.00
Jump to today....
2004
Base - $1,495.00
BAH - $483.80
HAZ - $150.00
FAMS - $250.00 you will note that approval was obtain to raise this until Dec. 30 2004 unless made permanent
Pay decrease? In addition there are more incentive pays all over the books. The military pay to my knowledge has never decreased. Clinton even tried cutting retirement benefits but was fought by civil groups that are made of retired military members. I also speak first hand these are my experiences with living in history and paying attention to polititics.
So let me get this straight, a soldier only gets 1000 bucks and change per month???
Yes, but meals are completely paid for and housing, assuming you don't have dependents. It's not very much, I think it should be MORE but a large commitee makes the determination of compensation. Overseas you make much more because you get additional cost of living allowances and there is no FICA taken out if in a combat zone. Not bad tho, if your single and no kids since that is basically all spending money. If you add in food, etc and OH medical is completely free as well as dental then total compensation is definitely a good deal compared to McDonalds, if you don't want to go to college or have trouble finding work. All that is taken care of so you are not taxed on it. Taxible income is SMALL that is why almost all young 18-24 year olds with familys can qualify for food stamps. So if you have a family it's not as good until about 5 years in but better than many find at that early age with no college education. Oh and retirement is taken care of as well, so if your in for the long run it's good and having medical coverage for the family is a decent thing when young. Oh and they pay huge amounts to college tuition for part time school and if you chose to get out after a small enlisment there is the GI Bill for college.