Saratoga News
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Point of View
As the war lingers on, should the military draft return?
By Carl Heintze
Do we need to reinstitute the draft? Do we need to bring back Selective Service? Do we need to conscript members of the Armed Forces?
The answer to these questions is as difficult to answer as those about immigration.
We fought the Vietnam War with conscripts and regulars as well. But when it was over, Selective Service was put on the shelf and the Armed Forces came to rely to volunteers, not draftees.
As a result, through the four years of the Iraqi war we have depended on volunteers to sustain the Armed Forces and until very recently volunteerism seems to have worked. Or at least the ranks of the military have been filled by those who have stepped forward voluntarily to risk life and limb in warfare.
In the last couple of months, however, the Armed Forces have failed to meet their recruiting goals; that is, recruiters have been unable to sign up new recruits or to get veterans to re-enlist. And now and then in the growing grumbling over the war, one hears a demand that we bring back the draft.
It's not so much the cost in manpower that propels this argument; it is the unequal share that our professional army is being asked to bear in our nation's defense.
While actual losses, that is killed and wounded, remain a small fraction of the number of men and women serving in Iraq and elsewhere in the military, there have been losses. There also has developed a decrease in both the amount of time troops spend back home after service in Iraq and a lengthening of the time they are required to spend in Iraq.
Neither of these disadvantages seems likely to go away, just as there seems no end to the protracted war.
Finally, unlike World War II, Korea and Vietnam, the burden of sacrifice is being borne unequally. Casualties--that is, death and injury--fall almost exclusively on the professional army and the families related to it.
For good or ill, as someone has said, this means that the majority of the American population is able to debate the war abstractly with little or no personal involvement in its course or outcome. No one, or apparently very few Americans, likes it much, but very few Americans seem affected enough by how it is going to do much about it.
The draft would change this, at least according to some, spreading the burden of sacrifice over a wider part of the population.
But would it?
The answer is by no means certain.
Even when Selective Service was in force, as it was in Vietnam, many escaped its dragnet by seeking college deferments, getting medical disabilities or simply by moving to Canada or Sweden. Presumably, instituting the draft during an unpopular war would bring back the same tactics.
In addition, who should be drafted? During the days of Vietnam it was supposed to be young, healthy American males. But the desire for equal opportunities for women makes it likely that women, too, would be subject to being drafted in any revitalized national service. Certainly women can volunteer today with equal opportunities to serve in the Armed Forces. Should drafted women be forced to serve in units destined for battle? Are there any units that are not likely to a part of battle in a contemporary war?
Should women be allowed to serve in combat?
Although not many have done so in Iraq, modern warfare, particularly the kind being fought in Iraq, offers no haven for "noncombatants." In Iraq everyone is in danger most of the time.
Conscription also probably would have its effect on the current system of contracting with civilians for many military tasks, ranging from security to food preparation and food service.
It would make more available for these tasks.
The question of civilian contractual services remains a controversial one. It makes for a two-party system--one the Armed Forces who presumably are motivated by patriotism, the other civilians under contract who presumably are motivated by their paychecks.
And so bringing back the draft, while it would be a return to a more equal system of sharing the cost of fighting a war, any war, also has its drawbacks.
But then perhaps fighting any war is a task with drawbacks. And perhaps fighting a war always will levy an unequal burden on some part of the population.
Perhaps the proper attitude would be to forget the draft and seek to avoid wars.
