Report: Army could be near breaking point

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I too believe a draft would be a good thing. I think it would benefit young people greatly. I also think it would make parents think twice about voting for some yahoo who believes every diplomatic crisis should be solved by sending in the troops.

We are arguing at cross-purposes here. I said the evidence in the US Army since WWII suggests that a draft Army is a bad idea. Morale is much better in a volunteer force. You also get much higher quality "raw material" at the Basic Training level. You (and others) are arguing something else entirely. You are saying a draft would be good for _society._ You may well be right.

I've thought many times that some type of mandatory service should be a requirement after the age of 18 in order to become a "full citizen." You want to vote, own guns, serve on juries, etc, then you have to make a contribution to society first. That could be military service. It could be something like the WPA for two years. Or working 1000 hours as a volunteer at your local nursing home for minimum wage. Whatever. It needs to be REAL work. It needs to be minimal pay. It needs to be something that your community/state/nation really needs and not just "make work." I do think such an idea could transform our whole entitlement/citizenship mentality.

But remember they are two different things. In some ways a draft just might be good for society. But it would be bad for the fighting force itself.

Gregg
 
Wingman, what "all" are you talking about? The "all" except the rich, the "all" except the politicians sons/daughters. There might be a draft in the near fucture but it will not be for all.
 
Preacherman said:
There's an easy way to have an Army with all the soldiers we need: pay them what they're worth! At the moment, Army salaries for lower ranks are pretty darn shameful, considering that they're putting their lives on the line for us. If we doubled pay across the board, it still wouldn't amount to all that much, but it would definitely be a worthwhile incentive to potential servicemen.

You get what you pay for. We're getting the Army we're paying for - and I, for one, want a better one!

i disagree. the pay in the army for instance, is definitely a pittance when compared with pay potential in the civilian world, but only for CERTAIN sorts of jobs. your avergae joe, especially a young one with no college, gets paid plenty. soldiers have virtually no cost of living, NO health care expense, can get substantial enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses, get extra pay and untaxed regular pay when deployed to certain places, and have the benefit of in-house financial advisors in the form of nosey, cranky NCOs that love to do corrective training with soldiers that have poor spending habits. i was better off financially in the army than i am now. it's good stable pay with yearly pay raises and easy promotion.

more importantly, if most soldiers made as much as their civilian equivelants job-wise, what would be special about serving? part of service is sacrifice, and learning to sacrifice is good for the soul. this is especially true of younger soldiers who really don't make s**t. but it's a good lesson for them to learn, and they get promoted quickly enough.
 
Preacherman said:
There's an easy way to have an Army with all the soldiers we need: pay them what they're worth! At the moment, Army salaries for lower ranks are pretty darn shameful, considering that they're putting their lives on the line for us. If we doubled pay across the board, it still wouldn't amount to all that much, but it would definitely be a worthwhile incentive to potential servicemen.

You get what you pay for. We're getting the Army we're paying for - and I, for one, want a better one!
+1 Preacherman, but the only problem here would be all the anti-Bush/republicans would scream the DEFICIT!!
I too believe a draft would be a good thing. I think it would benefit young people greatly. I also think it would make parents think twice about voting for some yahoo who believes every diplomatic crisis should be solved by sending in the troops.
But I think it would make the parents think twice about voting for some coward thats too busy chasing women around the white house and not willing to protect this country.;)
 
U.S.SFC_RET said:
All it would take is another war on another front to open up another draft.


If that happens you will see some serious social unrest, and rightly so.



Maybe were at the breaking point because its a sign that this "world nanny" crap has to stop.
 
PCGS65 said:
+1 Preacherman, but the only problem here would be all the anti-Bush/republicans would scream the DEFICIT!!

But I think it would make the parents think twice about voting for some coward thats too busy chasing women around the white house and not willing to protect this country.;)

I beg to differ about the Army's pay. My younger son, a Staff Sgt (E6) is on deployment for the MN Guard. He's at Camp Shelby, training for a spring deployment to Iraq. He's a college grad in Construction Management, currently making much more than he would on the job in the Minneapolis area. Hell, his take-home pay is at least what mine is (about $3200-3500/month). Once he leaves US soil, it becomes tax-free, I believe. They're paying big money for re-up bonuses as well. Add in health care for him, his wife and son, and it's a pretty good gig. All he has to do is come home in one piece...

JB
 
JonnyB said:
I beg to differ about the Army's pay. My younger son, a Staff Sgt (E6) is on deployment for the MN Guard. He's at Camp Shelby, training for a spring deployment to Iraq. He's a college grad in Construction Management, currently making much more than he would on the job in the Minneapolis area. Hell, his take-home pay is at least what mine is (about $3200-3500/month). Once he leaves US soil, it becomes tax-free, I believe. They're paying big money for re-up bonuses as well. Add in health care for him, his wife and son, and it's a pretty good gig. All he has to do is come home in one piece...JB
JonnyB I was thinking what my friends made in the service 25+ years ago. E6 is getting up there with other expenses paid. Maybe the starting pay isn't much? Does anyone know?
 
Daniel T said:

Now remember everyone, this does not include the benefits. Such as the free chow hall and free housing if you live in the dorms on base.

And even if you live in base housing becuase of you have a family they give you BAS(Basic Allowance for Substanance) which is about 230 a month and tax free.

Now if you move off base, you get paid BAH(Basic Allowance for Housing) and BAS. BAH depends on where you live and what rank you are though.

And another thing I loved when I was in, was the tax free commisary(grocery store) that only charged a small surcharge to keep it running. That free medical helps too.
 
Pay is also a recruitment tool. Thus the $60,000 bonuses paid to many troops in exchange for that 6 year enlistment. That works out to an extra $10,000 a year, plus about $3,000 for BAS, BAH depending on area or a free house/dorm room. Call it $7,000 a year for BAH. As an E-6, my annual pay rounds to $26,000. 26+10+3+7=$46,000 a year, plus full medical and housing, and substantial tax benefits. BAH and BAS are totally tax free, and pay if you're doing duty in a qualified hostile fire/hazardous duty location. That's how I managed to pull only paying $1k for federal taxes this year(in return for spending time in Baghdad), though I had to pay full rate medicare/social security(7.5%).

If the military can't make it's recruitment goals, that's when you see the bonuses start coming out.

Still, what a job ends up paying in a market society depends on it's skill level required, how hazardous it is, how difficult it is, how just plain nasty it is. A military not at war isn't that hard, they'll teach you, and isn't very dangerous or nasty. As military in a war is completely different. It's now hazardous, you often have nasty living conditions, away from your familiy, working long hours in bad conditions. The equation has now changed, and you have to pay more to make up for it.

I'm not necessarily talking about doubling pay, but at 20% boost would make more kids sit up and listen. It'd help recruitment and retention as it'd improve it's standing compared with the civilian work situation. A bonus with 50% paid up front isn't always the best move because many of the kids will go out and buy a hot car and proceed to wreck it or ruin themselves with insurance costs.
 
The draft was so misused in the 60's for Vietnam...

It was used perfectly during WWII.

The draft should only implemented for direct attacks against america. This situation counts due to: 9/11/01 and Hussein's desire for WMD and terrorist links.

Iran and Syria count as well due to their terrorist links and desire/capability for WMD.

But, if the draft is implemented, I say take the safeties off the nukes first. If we are in such bad shape that we need to conscript, then it's time to take the gloves off.

No conscription for global police actions. Conscription is for war. I'd rather kill a million fanatic "innocents" than one of our soldiers who has been conscripted.
 
But I think it would make the parents think twice about voting for some coward thats too busy chasing women around the white house and not willing to protect this country.

Huh?
 
During WWI and WWII there was no shortage of bodies. The draft organized the flow to keep things constant and predictable. During unpopular wars like Vietnam became it's used to deliver unwilling meat to the grinder.
 
Reinstate the draft...

...remove a pool of "desirable" taxpayers, after all, when (not IF) they're serving overseas it's non-taxable.

An influx of bodies = Cool, now operations can commence against Iran and Syria and North Korea, while keeping U.S. commitments elsewhere, without having to scale back in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe go back to Somalia and the Balkans to make up for Clinton's embarrassment too.

How are you gonna pay for all this after the draft guts what's left of the middle class? More IOUs?

The U.S. will look like Russia (after WWI/Bolshevik Revolution/purges/WWII); old men, "4-F" younger men, women and the poor (when the bill comes due). Outstanding. :scrutiny:
 
I don't think the Army is allowed to do what it needs to do in training to take people who don't want to be there and shape them into soldiers. I could be wrong, I just don't think a draft is anything the military wants or needs.
 
I don't think the Army is allowed to do what it needs to do in training to take people who don't want to be there and shape them into soldiers. [/QUOT

I agree with that, like our public schools no discipline, no control. I was
in Vietnam and seen many good men who were drafted, they may have
bitched but they fought for the guys they were with, many remained
in the service.

We now have a population who feel they have no duty to serve in any
capacity. I will repeat, draft, don't like it leave. The military (long term)
cannot function like a business, results will be poor.
 
Throughout history,

what has been needed to make a conscript army of soldiers who really don't want to be there effective? A cadre of professional soldiers (party officials too, in some cases); with the conscripts being more afraid of their OWN side than the enemy. Then you get cannon fodder, suitable for a holding action until the real pros can engage.

WWII was a DIRECT attack against the U.S. by a known and stated enemy that could be (eventually) negotiated with.

Korea was to prevent the spread of Communism - and it STILL isn't over.

Vietnam was, to put it mildly, a mess. Was it to prevent the spread of Communism, was it "war by proxy," was it to help an ally (France) regain its empirical territory? All of the above? Perhaps that's why the draft ended and the war became unpopular - nobody could justify why the U.S. was there.

Since then, conflicts have been by an all-volunteer army, but the why of it is usually hazy. Grenada (hostages) and Libya (terrorists) had a "just" cause and an ending (more or less), but the Balkans and Somalia? Unstated goals, restricted rules of engagement, shaky reasoning...ask any service member if they enlisted to be a traffic cop or security screener in some third-world hellhole.

If the U.S. military needs to beat and brainwash unwilling draftees, have Party members watch over them and report to the secret police, have routine "field court martials"...well then, it's not the United States of America any more, nor is it worth fighting for.

ex-USN, '85-'90, volunteered at 17...so I've earned my right to dissent.
 
I think we'd be in much better shape simply without the recent armor scandals. (How many now, 3? Humvees, no Interceptors, and the ban on Dragon Skin, I think)

We'd be better still -- far better -- if we had a foe we could engage, defeat, and mop up. Problem is that sort of "take the hill" with tanks just doesn't seem to happen much any more - Abrams and the Warthog and Merkava have just about reached the point where they're too perfect. (So we're retiring 'em, but that's a whole 'nother rant)

Personally? If they began forming the First Heinlein Hardsuit Brigade or Walker Squad, I'd ... oh, 2/3 odds I'd join up. (Imagine a helicopter gunboat gone even heavier on the cannons, or if you've ever seen Bubblegum Crisis... imagine the K-12 on steroids :evil:) I'd preserve America the meme over America the political body; one drove a handful of farmers to conquer the world, one is taking 50% of your paycheck to pay for entitlement programs. (I thought that would get your attention) If the former survives, the latter will too; if the latter survives at the expense of the former, it won't be worthy of the name for long.
 
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