Anyone feel a draft?

[thedrifter]

Sunday, April 11, 2004

COMMENTARY: Donald N. Zillman


Anyone feel a draft?



Copyright ? 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.


Prominent lawmakers such as Rep. Charles Rangel of New York and others argue that our volunteer military is not representative of society, and that it offends fairness to have casualties in Iraq disproportionately drawn from members of America's less advantaged classes. A presidential election is shaping up in which two veterans of the Vietnam era have had to assert or defend their performance in that conflict - America's last draft-based war.

To anyone under age 45, discussions of the draft must seem like discussions of the Great Depression seemed to their parents. The last time a young American male faced any selective service obligation beyond a one-time registration was in 1973. Even to Americans over 45, memories of the draft may have faded or been frozen inaccurately in time. Before we engage in serious consideration of resuming the military draft, it is important to understand the social, military and political forces that originally led to the draft - which, from its beginnings, has been a litmus test of public attitudes toward civic responsibility.

The modern military draft (also known as the selective service or conscription) began in World War I. Behind solid encouragement from the military establishment, President Woodrow Wilson declared we would raise the large army needed to win the war "chosen on the principle of universal liability to service," rather than by the traditional reliance on volunteers. A somewhat resistant Congress agreed.

Efficiency and fairness, in that order, prompted the decision for the draft. Workers in the factories and on the farms were as important as soldiers on the front line. Concerns for fairness dictated that the privileged should face the same obligation as the disadvantaged. Here, the memory of the Civil War draft loomed large, where wealthy draftees had been permitted to "buy a substitute" - causing rioting in New York City.

In a crucial decision, Congress put the work of selecting the draftees for the first world war not on the military, but on the civilian "friends and neighbors" in the draftees' local communities. It was a structure that would guide selective service for the rest of the century. The law also provided the basics of selection, which first applied only to young men ages 21 to 30. Three grounds for exemption - physical and mental health, responsibility for the support of spouses, children or parents, and performance of work deemed in the national interest - did disqualify better than half of the registrants from induction into the armed forces.

In a remarkable assertion of national purpose, almost 10 million young men registered for service on June 5, 1917, the one day all those eligible were to enlist. By the hundreds of thousands, they were selected for service, trained stateside and shipped to France where they helped the Allies win the war. They were joined by thousands of other volunteers, who often were too young or too old for conscripted service. The promise of equal service was more than talk. While many privileged men of draft age avoided actual service, many did not. Among the fatalities of the war in combat or military training were one son of President Theodore Roosevelt (two other sons were seriously wounded), former New York City Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, and veteran Massachusetts Congressman Augustus Gardner.

Altogether, about 4 million men served the United States in World War I. At the dawn of American involvement in World War II, the picture was different. The American Army at that time was smaller than the forces of some Balkan nations, which prompted a return to the draft in 1940. That act was renewed a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor - by one vote in Congress. In this second experience with world war, 12 million Americans would eventually serve. And despite the remarkable service of our "civilian soldiers" in the "good war," a large number of those troops were there because of the draft.

The start of the Cold War shortly after the German and Japanese surrenders in 1945 kept the draft as part of the American experience for young men. With the exception of one year in the late 1940s, conscription was a fact of life from 1940 to 1973. Draftees were a considerable portion of the forces that fought wars in Korea and Vietnam and that served in the tense 40-year standoff with the Soviet Union and Communist China.

The maturing of the baby boom generation and the considerable downsizing of the armed forces after the end of World War II posed a challenge that would eventually help to undermine the draft. Unlike during World War II, maintenance of military strength did not now require the services of every physically eligible young man. How, then, would the "selective" in selective service really work?

By the time of the Vietnam War, the answer was rather clear - the children of the privileged classes could avoid military service if they wished. As Vietnam became both bloody and controversial, large numbers of them wished exactly that. The draft laws and regulations aided their mission. Extensive physical disability standards provided ways for otherwise healthy young men to be physically disqualified, often with the help of supportive family doctors. Extensive occupational deferments provided a way to avoid military service, as did enrollment in higher education, which encouraged some students to pursue a decade-long ramble through undergraduate and graduate institutions.

It was during this time that enrollment in one of the military reserves or National Guard became popular as an avenue of exemption. By contrast with the level of preparedness of today's "total force," these auxiliary units were often woefully below the military capability of the active armed forces. They also provided a reasonably strong assurance to a prospective recruit that duty would only minimally disrupt a civilian career and could often guarantee avoiding Vietnam service. As a consequence, the draft may have served to provide manpower for an unpopular war, but it assuredly did not spread the sacrifice among all social classes.

President Richard Nixon came to office amid the debate over the fairness and efficiency of the draft. His political instinct led him to adopt suggestions for an all-volunteer force for a war that he needed to de-escalate (at the height of the war, the U.S. had more than 550,000 troops in that country). His correct perception was that sufficient volunteers could be found if pay and conditions of service life improved. A generation of new military leaders, with Colin Powell as a most visible member, rebuilt the war-shattered armed forces in the mode of the volunteer army.

That armed force has served the country well for three decades in which the demand for personnel has been light, when we have avoided lengthy and unpopular wars, and when fairness concerns have not loomed large. If we are now facing a world in which those assumptions no longer are true, all bets may be off for the continued success of an all-volunteer force.

The 20th century experience should convince us that we must think very hard about both efficiency and fairness in any consideration of resuming the draft. It is pivotal to ensure that our military is truly representative of the people.

- Donald N. Zillman is a Godfrey professor of law at the University of Maine School of Law.


http://www.pressherald.com/insight/...itarydraf.shtml


Ellie