Draft!

This is coolbert:

"Give us this day, our daily Ghurkha!"

Again, the subject of the draft.

"How on earth would you select the best during a draft? The smartest inductees at least will be most successful in escaping service. Watch as young people start dropping out of high school rather than get high grades and be drafted, or cram themselves with Doritos to be fat and not be drafted (heck, it happens already and there's no draft)."

First off, I am no fan of resuming the military draft. Let me make that clear. It is ALWAYS preferable to have folks who volunteer and are WILLING to be part of the military than draft people to flesh out units. People WILLING to do something are ALWAYS to be preferred than people BEING FORCED to do something.

And yet, from time to time, you do hear it mentioned that if a second conflict involving the U.S. was to break out somewhere in the world, our military, the American armed forces, WOULD be hard pressed to respond in a suitable manner. NOT enough boots around to do the job as it should be done. Remember, we not only want to fight, but win. Merely getting involved in another conflict, as bad as that would be, is NOT desired. If we are forced to fight "on another front", such as Korea, at this time, bogged down in Iraq as we are, DOES ANYONE feel we have enough people at the ready?

I see possible solutions to this problem. ONE is to resume the draft. Flesh out those two Army training divisions,, the 88th and 85th, both already existing, with about 10,000 young draftees each. Bring those units to active duty and strength, with readiness, rapidly achieved by selecting ONLY the best draftees. For units of the best specimens, physically and mentally.

Those divisions, activated, could be on stand-by status for deployment to an additional overseas assignment IF NEEDED.

HOW to do is not going to be easy.

Surely there must be some incentives that may even "entice" certain folks to submit willingly to a draft. Paid full tuition with guaranteed acceptance at the BEST colleges and universities in the nation at the end of a two year tour??

But, NO wholesale draft of numbers in excess of the few tens of thousands. Fairness where EVERYONE would have to submit to the draft would not even be an issue in my mind. Use some means to screen out the mental dullards and physically incompetent [physically from a fitness standpoint of ability to run, jump, throw, etc. Jock or jock wannabee types are what you would want!!]

Can anyone suggest other incentives??

Else, "give us this day our daily Ghurkha". See my blog entry of 10/13/2005 concerning this matter. Three brigades of Ghurkhas, one each of airmobile, mechanized infantry, and light infantry added to American forces should do the trick. Adequate units for almost any contingency. An American Ghurkha Legion. The British to this day still recruit yearly about 200 Ghurkhas for their remaining Ghurkha unit. AND HAVE TWENTY THOUSAND APPLICANTS AT A TIME TO SELECT FROM!! SO WHY NOT THE U.S. TOO!!

Of course, when I say this stuff, I realized that all this is pie in the proverbial sky. But, if done, would be infinitely better that what existed in the 1950's and 1960's.

coolbert.