Reenactment Of The Military Service Draft example essay topic

The Military Draft: An Unwise Solution The United States of America's military is currently involved in two major wars with U.S. opposition in Afghanistan and Iraq. All though both of these efforts can be said to be in the clean-up stages, many more soldiers will be needed to stabilize the regions, to provide police work, and to fight the insurgencies that have risen in opposition to the invasion of U.S. troops into foreign lands. The current presidential administration states that to adequately deal with the problems of post-war Iraq and unstable Afghanistan the United States needs to increase the number of active-duty soldiers serving over-seas. Top officials in the administration have said that a reorganization of the military is already in progress, and it will create more combat regiments, but the quoted additional 25,000 new military participants needed per year can hardly be met through these minor reorganizations. In addition, recruiting numbers are at their lowest in over ten years ("All Things Considered", NPR News Source.) Many feel that the reenactment of the military service draft is inevitable because it is the only way to come up with the astounding number of new troops needed to finish the jobs started in the Middle-East by George W. Bush and his Republican administration.

If increasing the size of the military is inevitable, then the draft is the wrong way to go. Aside from the moral objections that many Americans have to a draft, there are major logical fallacies in the reasoning that a draft would benefit the military, America, or its interests abroad; therefore, the draft should not be reenacted to increase the number of the United States' combat troops. The most obvious problem with a military draft is that it creates soldiers that do not want to go to war. Currently our army is volunteer-only, and no one can be forced to enlist if he or she does not want to. This maintains our army as efficient and dedicated to its goal with its members being committed and personally connected to the well-being of American interests. These voluntary soldiers are the best kind of soldiers because they believe in what they are doing.

Generalizing slightly, they are willing to give their lives for this country and the missions that it takes on in the world. If a draft were reenacted, this would not be so. Upon forcing citizens to enlist, our military would quickly decline in morale and ability and would probably be less effective than it was with fewer numbers and more commitment. A group of people who are morally or logically opposed to war - to war in general or to the current war specifically - would make terrible soldiers because the nature of being a soldier is to put your life and personal interests on the line to support a cause. Without personal determination and belief that a cause is right or just, the adequate effort to succeed in war can never be fully given. Evidence of these formerly-mentioned consequences was apparent when the draft was instated in 1969 to aid the American effort in Vietnam.

The quantity of soldiers increased, but the quality of their efforts decreased. Many soldiers who were drafted refused to go. Some made efforts to stop the war from the inside, and some even sabotaged their own troops. This was because many of the people drafted to fight felt that it was not their war, and that they had no real interest in its outcome. These examples of the detrimental effects of the Vietnam draft should be enough evidence to show that the draft does not work. Many say that the draft is justified because every American has to cooperate in the shared sacrifice of a nation at war.

They believe that, as citizens, all Americans have the responsibility to personally relate to the military goals of the U.S. and to take on a part of the burden, but military service and war have never been of equal interest to all. Where do the distinctions lie between equality in society and equal responsibility to participate in war? In the American historical sense, the draft has never been a fair lottery, as many proponents have called it. In the first civil war, for example, a wealthy man could buy his way out of the war for three-hundred dollars.

This marked the beginning of upper-class citizens finding ways to have their war fought by the poverty stricken, the middle-class, and the minorities, all though almost all of the interests of victory affected mainly the wealthy upper-class. One must also consider the issue of women or homosexuals in the military and their respective equality in society. Can equality really ever be realized if there are exceptions to the rule? If a truly fair and civil draft were to take place, it would have to include women and homosexuals at the drafting age as well. Many for resuming the traditional male draft argue that there are some jobs that women are simply not fit to perform in the military and that their involvement may actually hurt the strength of the regiment in which they serve, but if men have a responsibility to fight and possibly die for this country, then women do as well. Anyone can be trained to be a soldier, and regardless of whether one is a female, a physically unfit male, or a homosexual, any draft that is considered to be fair would have to be all-encompassing and must include all who can reasonably perform the acts of war.

The problems with the inequalities of a draft make it quite difficult for any sort of fair draft to be written. A draft must be written in straightforward terms and rules, and our society's current battles over equality and rights make that a very difficult if not impossible thing to do. The next inequality that poses a problem to creating a fair draft would be that of age. The draft as it is written now would take its first batch of soldiers from the group of young men who had turned twenty in the year that the draft was issued.

It is apparent that this age was chosen because it offers the most physically fit applicants at an age that may not have yet provided them with the wisdom or experience to make a conscious decision whether they want to go to war or not. Could not the age of the draft be equalized? The age span could probably be expanded from eighteen to possibly thirty, but it is unlikely than anyone over thirty would be asked to go to war. The consequences of this are that the young are sent to fight in a war that mainly interests - politically or monetarily - the group of people who are too old to be drafted. In the specific example of the war in Iraq, if the draft were to be reenacted, the underlying statement by wealthy politicians and businessmen would be that they are willing to sacrifice the lives of the youth at random to maintain their own financial comfort. The draft is an unwise solution to any military endeavor that cannot find the adequate number of troops to fulfill its mission.

If people have to be forced to participate in a war, perhaps it was irresponsible to carry it out in the first place without a plan as to how the entire thing would be carried out with the existing military forces. Needing a draft to aid a military campaign also shows that the citizens do not wholly support the cause, because they are not standing up to fight for it. Forcing these people to fight would be disastrous. At home, riots and protesting would ravage the nation and bring to our domestic life a great deal of turmoil. Abroad, soldier morale and ability would be greatly reduced by forcing people who have never been soldiers, and who never wanted to be soldiers, to be soldiers. The draft is therefore an obsolete mechanism of war, and should never be reenacted for the good of our stability, morale, and military strength.