A military draft is unlikely in current Washington climate
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Although a few congressional Democrats have tried to push a bill to reinstate the military draft, no change in the current volunteer armed services is in sight for 2008.
Legislation calling for a draft have sprouted intermittently over the last six years from Democrats such as Rep. Charlie Rangel, Rep. John Conyers and Rep. John Murtha.
Rangel introduced H.R. 393 in January of last year, which would “require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security.”
Bills such as this one have generally been dismissed by critics as unfeasible. In fact, Rangel’s 2002 proposal to reinstate a military draft was shot down 402-to-2 in a House vote.
According to Chris Kelly, Minnesota Congresswoman Betty McCollum’s Military Legislative Assistant, a draft is unlikely because “Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi has stated the Democratic leadership of the House will not support any legislation to reinstate a draft.”
Rangel is a critic of the Iraq war and proposed the 2002 bill to try and stall military action. He also is a critic of the so-called “economic draft,” which is a term for the military practice of recruiting in impoverished areas.
Some feel that an “economic draft” is already here because the armed services recruiters essentially select the type of person who is to serve.
“[Sometimes] the only options kids in impoverished high schools have are the military or manual labor in a blue-collar job,” University of St. Thomas student Benjamin Nebo said.
Leilani Dowell, an organizer with the anti-imperialist group International Action Center, thinks it would be easier for wealthy people to find loopholes to evade being drafted. But she believes the draft is not coming back because of the protest it would incite.
“[The government] knows that the response to the Vietnam War was in part because all the youths were getting drafted to a war that they didn’t believe in,” she said.
Yet some troops have had to return to Iraq for a third or fourth tour, which means the military is stretching itself thin.
“They are desperate and recruiting numbers have been down across the board,” Dowell said.
Not according to the military. After a 2005 fiscal year that produced a military shortfall, 2006 was a much better recruiting year, as the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force all met recruiting goals.
Critics have argued the military is still able to reach recruiting goals because the standards of recruiting have dropped. “Tier 1” recruits are those with at least a regular high school diploma, but they have dropped from 83.5 percent in 2005 to 70.7 percent in 2007.
According to a July 2006 Christian Science Monitor article, there has also been fear that the military is letting in gang members and political extremists such as white supremacists to meet recruiting goals.
As the Iraq war continues to lumber along, students of drafting age are becoming increasingly reluctant to join ROTC programs for college financial aid. Recent television ads have targeted parents instead of potential recruits because parents often try to talk their children out of enlisting.
If the military is to retain a voluntary armed force, Kelly said that benefits for soldiers are paramount.
“It [should] include better health care and retirement benefits, better benefits for family members and fulfilling our promises to provide for them when their service has concluded,” he said.