Joe Galloway: Shy of the Draft, There are Other Ways for Americans to Pay the Price of Freedom
Joe Galloway: Shy of the Draft,
There are Other Ways for Americans to Pay the Price of Freedom
About
the Author
Joseph L. Galloway
is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist.
One of America's preeminent war correspondents,
with more than four decades as a reporter
and writer, he recently concluded an assignment
as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell
at the State Department.
Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent
22 years as a foreign and war correspondent
and bureau chief for United Press International,
and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and
senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
magazine. His overseas postings include tours
in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore
and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow
in the former Soviet Union. During the course
of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served
four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam
and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War
and half a dozen other combat operations.
In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert
Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division
(Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H.
Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The
finest combat correspondent of our generation
-- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."
WASHINGTON - Thirty years ago this week, as the Vietnam
War was winding toward its painful conclusion, Defense Secretary
Melvin Laird put an end to the military draft and America turned to
an all-volunteer military force.
During the 20th century's wars the United States drafted a total of 16.3 million men into military service. Women were never drafted. The threat of the draft forced many millions more to enlist "voluntarily" in hopes of avoiding assignment to the infantry.
When the draft ended, the U.S. Army had 13 active duty divisions (800,000 soldiers), most filled with young draftees doing a two-year involuntary tour. For the preceding three and a half years they had been chosen by a national birthday lottery. Prior to that they had been chosen by their local Selective Service Board.
"Greetings," began the ominous letter. "Your friends and neighbors have chosen you …"
When the draft came to a halt, the U.S. Army had been torn apart by the Vietnam War and by the drug culture that the draft brought directly from the streets into its ranks. In Germany top sergeants carried a .45 pistol, cocked and loaded, just to walk through their own barracks at night. Racial tensions were high and sometimes erupted into violence. The corps of non-commissioned officers, the sergeants who are the backbone of any Army, had been decimated in Vietnam.
It took a decade to clean out the troublemakers and incompetents, install a zero-tolerance for drugs, and establish higher standards, including a high school diploma, for enlistment and advancement.
Today the Army has 10 divisions, a total of 480,000 soldiers, and is reckoned to be the best-trained and most lethal military force operating in the world.
The Pentagon has never looked back since the draft and all those troublesome draftees went away. The defense establishment loves the volunteer military. Those who are there, for the most part, want to be there and are motivated to do a tough, demanding job and do it well.
From almost every way you look at it, the all-volunteer Army is the most effective, most efficient way to go about defending America. Almost …
So what is missing and why should we care?
What is missing is a sense of shared sacrifice, especially when it comes to war and dying. Freedom is not free, and the price is not paid by everyone. The sons and daughters of the elite don't serve. Increasingly it is hard to scare up a senator or member of Congress who has worn the uniform. In large swaths of the country the average American doesn't even know someone who wears the uniform.
A British general once said that an army should mirror the face of the society it defends. Because of the very successful all-volunteer military, ours does not. It is better than society in general; its standards, ethics and morals are generally higher and better; the military offers the most level playing field for minorities in America; selfless service is the soldier's mantra in a society where "getting mine first" is more the norm.
Perhaps it is time, and past time, for our country to give serious consideration to instituting true national service for our youngsters, without all the loopholes and exemptions and fiddles that plagued the late unlamented draft.
We might give thought to requiring that at age 18 or upon graduation from high school every young man and woman who is physically and mentally capable would owe a term of service to the nation. They could be offered a broad choice in where and how long they would serve: In the military; in a new Civilian Conservation Corps tasked to repair and rebuild our failing National Parks; in a volunteer corps to work in our schools and hospitals; in the Peace Corps overseas.
Those who choose the more dangerous and demanding military service would, upon completion of four years of honorable service, be given a four-year scholarship to any state-supported college in America that would accept them. Those choosing one of the other opportunities for a term of two years of service would be entitled to a two-year free ride in college.
Although clearly it would be a very expensive program it should be viewed as an investment in our young people, and in a much better educated workforce. New generations would have something personal invested in their freedom and their country. Millions who might never earn a college degree would suddenly have the opportunity to do so.
This has the potential to jumpstart both the economy and our society,
just as the GI Bill did after World
War II when 15 million returning veterans poured into colleges
with government support. It is worth thinking about.
