Comments on: Happy Days are Here Again

By: b2

b2 — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:01:24 +0000

Lat $.02- I hate the conversation about a draft affecting the greatest All Volunteer Force in our military history..for simple, incorrect and shortsided emotional pinheaded arguments.

How about we just draft gays? LOL. Would that make you happy Skippy?

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:40:14 +0000

Virgil — interesting discussion. If you go to that Heritage study I referenced, the regional stats reveal much when you look at recruiting rates against % of the population. NE and the mid Atlantic states? .75 recruit/population ratio. Every other region is right at 1.0. So, who is making up the slack for the NE elite? West South Central and Mountain states — 1.34 and 1.11.

So the correct statement for Charlie Rangel is that Texas kids are fighting and dying instead of those in Massachusetts.

By: jm

jm — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:23:49 +0000

Quartermaster-

I’m pretty sure Heinlein was at least somewhat vocal about his opposition to the draft given:

“I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can’t save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain! ” -Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, WA (1961)

By: virgil xenophon

virgil xenophon — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:33:36 +0000

Quartermaster/

RE: The South being overrepresented in the services. Reminds me of an old Army drill Sgt. who was once quoted as saying: “They’re only three kinds of people in this man’s Army–Southern Whites, Southern Blacks–and all the rest.” LOL.

By: cas

cas — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:33:56 +0000

Why shouldn’t the middle class represent the majority of military enlisted recruits (and officer corps, as well) ? They represent the majority of the country’s population, after all.
Most middle-class kids are encouraged to go to college, but many find that the cost of a good school prohibitive. West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs are full scholarship schools, as are the ROTC programs nationwide.
With the change in the economy, many HS (and College) graduates will find that the employment opportunities they thought were waiting for them are gone.
I had a similar “rude-awakening” when I joined in 1981, but the reason I told everyone that I joined was that I thought I would get to fight the Iranians!

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:12:31 +0000

I agree on the “thinking” part, but really disagree on the “fighting” part. Like I said, kinda right, kinda wrong. It is middle class kids that are doing the fighting, not the lower class. Heck, look at McCain’s son — as upper crust as they come. Marine rifleman.