Military draft in spring 2005, for real

Why can’t people just live in peace with each other.

I agree Dreamer. That’s not to say I don’t think we should protect ourselves though. Some of the weirdos that say that are just as bad as the killing psychos.

Holy Reality makes a good point. I’d kill to prtoect myself or others, but I wouldn’t be thinking how “cool” it was later.

That is truly sick. I am a guy, so I admit, playing paintball, or Halo or watching shows like “24” give me a rush and I may occasionally have fantasies about protecting a girl or my family or friends from a “bad guy” (but not nessecarily killing) and I might even get a rush from being in a military situation, but killing, really and truly killing and enjoying it (at least later)? I don’t think so. That’s messed up.

Yeah, I agree with you Dream_Reacher, you should definately fight to protect yourself. Though if everyone lived in peace there wouldn’t be any need to.

Yeah.

Been in the army almost two years now…
that rumour was being spread around here about last spring, last fall, last winter…
it never ends.
I do not think that the united states army could operate effectively by making people involluntairly join and receive the training to be a lean green killing machine.
I’ve had people in my unit who had second thoughts after coming in, that the army wasnt for them… they were just dead weight, they caused an extreme downfall to the effectiveness and morale of the unit and the mission simply because of their negative attitude and unwillingness to perform.
I would hate to see the day that i have entire platoons of people who never wanted to be in the army in the first place coming into my unit even though we are understrength. It simply would not work. We could never operate that way.
The army has prided it self as of late for being the largest and most effective volunteer army in the world. We are effective because this is the job we chose. Anything else would just be names added to a roster at a loss of effectiveness.
A draft would certainly mean quantity over quality.
That gets people killed.

Yes that rumor has been around for some time but, when you look at the fact that the military is missing it’s recruit goals by 40% + you never know what will happen in t the future. Also, many claim that the reserves and national guard are being use as a back door draft right now! When your time is up soldiers should be allowed to return home.

Personally I think there should be a draft. Perhaps then our leaders will be more careful about deciding when to go to war.

I dunno about your leaders of the future, but I doubt the guy leading your country now is that smart, nor does he care that much.

“…”

Very true, 18 month deployements for guard and reserve units (as opposed to 12 for RA)
what i have been seeing a WHOLE lot is a large number of people being pulled from IRR (individual ready reserve, 2-6 year period after termination of enlistment the army can pull you onto active duty status)
Lot of angry people being pulled back into the army after finishing their contracts and begining to start new lives…
i’d hate to see a draft as opposed to this, delaying the start of a new lifestyle is no where near as bad as stopping life goals in their track.

(two posts in a row, i know! this is a topic i feel strongly about)

yeah, bush is a trigger happy texan’ with the worlds largest and most powerful weapons on a hairpin trigger in his grasp.
i hope and pray he stops with iraq.
i fear iran and korea will come soon.
if it does, a draft is certain.
i hope actions in iraq are resolved in haste and that there will be no need for a draft.

Well if it happens, I won’t get drafted anyways. I’m deaf and it’s forbidden in military community. :razz: However, I rather not to think a lot about wars and wars because they’re very depressing.

Wow, Milod you want to be drafted into Bush’s adventures? Are you insane? The only way that you will ever be able to deploy an army without it being a massive misuse of power and authority is to have a fully democratic army and nation, where the military can only be deployed if there is a very, very high level of agreement in all sectors of society. There should be a law, and i’m being serious here, that it is an offense, punishable by death, to order people to kill other people. Why should one man, backed up by a large array of fervent fundamentalist advisors, have the power to order death to people in other countries? The U.S. might be considered a democracy, but having one man with his finger on the button is nothing short of a dictatorship in military terms.

Besides, why the hell does the U.S. need more killing machines??? The U.S. already has by far the biggest arsenal in the world, why should that be added to when the people controlling the U.S. are so out of control themselves? We should be fighting to disarm the U.S. and all other overly armed nations.

Also the amount the U.S. spends on its military is a big joke. Everyone knows that so much money gets diverted to the pentagon and then into all kinds of crazy schemes like Star Wars instead of on what the U.S. really needs, things like good hospitals and schools and anti-poverty measures.

I really fail to see how having drafted instead of voluntary soldiers would make the types of leaders much of the world has think twice about commiting them to war.

Well, if the planet can survive another 15 years, the US should be bankcrupt by then.
Thats not really a good thing, but there’ll be no more money for a military :tongue: Bush should really be looking at the US’ massive national debt and the severe possibility of social security money running out instead of dropping bombs on children.

if you havn’t noticed, Bush isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed :tongue: He’ll probably keep the war going until his second (how could people re-elect him?!) term is over. we just have to hope he dies, or is killed/impeached.

Wow,
Well! during the reign of King Willy Clinton, he decided to downsize the military, a lot of people were offered LARGE bonuses to leave. big mistake. the united states army is meant to be capable of fighting (and winning) two landwars simoultaneous anywhere in the world against any foe.
I believe at this point in time we have the second largerst air force (air force and navy are being downsized dramaticly) the largest navy and the second largest ground force in the world. (china tops us on troops and planes) Yes the army does have the big guns, but not the troops to man them. We are very understaffed from pres. clintons downsizing and failure in army recruiting goals.
Financial (mis)use in the military is an entirely different topic. True, a lot of money is used and wasted in crazy schemes (star wars? please. that was over twent years ago, we’ve moved on to crazier and more effective schemes… like strikers and striker brigades :wink: ) I strongly believe that a strong military is an important aspect of the united states role in the rest of the world. if we were to fall who would have power? england? france? or maybe somebody who isnt an ally, china or korea maybe, (i think the fragmented soviet union is still worth a mention)
yes the funds used in the us army are vast and could be used for better things. (on that note why dont you have PETA start buying the homeless happy meals instead of red paint to pour on somebodys fur coat? there is money being misused absolutely everwhere.)
the army has good hospitals, the army has good schools, the army helps its veterans. not all the money allotted to the military is used on painting battleships toupe one day and battleship grey the next.
Drafted leaders plain and simple are better then those who joined on their own.
the type of person who when drafted says to themselves “my country needs me! i will do everything i can to do my duty” make the best leaders the army has known.
so go ahead and disarm the united states.
we went into iraq full force and found tanks lined up ready to attack but entirely unmanned at the fear of the rumbling of our guns.
we are army. we get the job done.
go ahead and disarm us.
take the hammers away from the corps of engineers in south amercia, africa, and the middle east building schools, churches and shelters.
go ahead and disarm us.
take away the sandbags and rescue helicopters from the guardsmen responding at a moments notice to fires, floods, missing person, disasters of all kind, saving lives.
go ahead and disarm us.
might as well get rid of all the green berets,
let the drug trafficing from south america flow freely into the united states and europe.
go ahead and disarm us.
take the spatulas away from our cooks!
take the food and water we give to the thousands of refugees away. i suppose they dont need funding for that do they?
go ahead and disarm us.
take the weelchairs from our veterans, and the familes of our troops, take away the healthcare the army provides for THOUSANDS of veterans, troops, and their families. I guess they dont help out anyways.
go ahead and disarm us.
take the bullets away from the infantry. they dont need them do they? when we hunted down al-queada, slowing terrorist attacks to a near standstill in the americas and europe, they didnt need funding and support then did they? are you saying the thousands of lives saved in the global war on terror shouldnt have been saved?
go ahead and disarm us.
we are army. we get the job done.
we do a lot of good in the world.
if you can see past a foolish man’s selfish plans.
disarm us, and just see if the world will be a better place.[/i]
we are not just killing machines in the us army.
we make a differnce.

The problem isn’t your army, it’s your president :tongue:

Anyone who is politically conscious sees the looming danger with the current U.S. administration’s fervent desire to control the world. And what about england (I think you mean the U.K.) or france? Why do you look down on them as potential super-powers (not that I believe they should aim to be)? The U.S. has a long history, like a lot of other nations have, of doing some horrific things to various nations and peoples, and you shouldn’t so blindly advocate having your nation as THE global power.

What? PETA are a radical private organisation, what does the way they spend their money have to do with where public funds, from citizens taxes, are spent by ‘democratically’ elected leaders when they flow into the miltary-industrial complex?

What’s your point? That the U.S. is such a big tough nation? That its army is scary? Of course it is, so what? The U.S. has killed a lot of people over the last 50 years, are you proud of that? What the U.S. found in Iraq was barely any military resistance until the fundamentalists moved in. All that proves is that your government lied about Iraq’s threat, and woefully misjudged what would occur, and how to manage the situation, after they took power in an already desolate country.

Hold on, fundamentalist terrorists need to be stopped, few rational people would disagree with that, but the way your government has gone about the task has only created far more terrorist related deaths. You clearly haven’t seen any of the statistics which prove in plain simple facts that so far you are not only loosing the war on terror, but that you are helping it grow, and surely no-one wants that apart from the crazy fundamentalist terrorists. See

msnbc.msn.com/id/5889435/
cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/ … ll.terror/
cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/iraq.deaths/

I’m sure the army does quite a lot of good in certain places, but most of it could be done by a similarly trained non-militarised organisation. Why do trained killers have to be the one’s doing most of the humanitarian/aid work? And i’m not talking about peace keeping here, obviously you need armed organisations for that?

I’ll refraise what I said earlier;P
The military (of any country) is kind of like a gun. A gun in the hands of a cop enforcing the law for the safety of the public is a good thing. A gun in the hands of a bank robber shooting the clerk is a bad thing. See where I’m going with this?
…President Bush would be the latter.
So, maybe what I should’ve said was, “The problem is a corrupt organization using an uneccesarily large army as a proverbial pawn in the effort to make the individuals in that corrupt organization more and more wealthy.”
Has anyone besides me here though about this;
If Iraq was such a threat to the United States, why did Saddam have to hide in a hole? Why was there no military resistance, save for a few fundamentalists blowing themselves up? Why were there no weapons of mass distruction?
Please, if Iraq really was such a threat to Freedom, if it really had weapons of mass destruction, Bush would’ve picked an easier country to invade…like Canada.

i am going to respectfully bow down from this debate.
this could go on forever. thing is, the army pays my bills, feeds me and my family. i am going to like what they tell me to like, and support what they tell me to support.
I would like to make one point, and agree with you also. Bush lied about the WMD to get into iraq, it is unfortunate that he had to resort to lying. Thing is there was an injustice, an unruly dictatorship that i think he could not turn a blind eye too. I feel actions in iraq are justified and i am willing to fight and die in iraq if this country asks it of me. I believe in the ideals we are fighting for (even if they are caught up in a web of lies and personal vendetta)
thank you and i value your insights.

MAC

i have anti-peta issues :wink: more of a peya (people for the eating of yummy animals) kind of guy. peta bothers me a little.

sisokogotai

Hopefully you understand that people who are against the war are against the people who made the decision to go to war, not the soldiers who carried out the war.

No doubt that sadam was a bad guy but, there are a lot of bad guys around the world. Many of whom are a far more of a threat to us (the free world) and we are doing nothing.

Yes he committed atrocities against his own people yet, there is a genocide going on in Sudan right now and we(the free world) are doing nothing.