Military Draft:  Could the U.S. military bring back the draft?  
Also see "Troops FAQ" on recruiting and   "Troops Come Home?" FAQ

Starting in the fall of 2003, there was more talk of the military being stretched thin, with reserves and National Guard being stationed for much longer periods than since Vietnam.  What if U.S. troops were also needed somewhere else?

In December 2003 we first received reports that as many as 40,000 troops were prevented from leaving the armed services. These "stop-loss" provisions are not new, according to the UK's Independent, and were used most recently in the first Gulf War of 1991. Northwestern University's  leading military sociologist Charles Moskos' books include A Call to Civic Service and The Military: More Than Just a Job.  He says, "It reflects the fact that the military is too small, which nobody wants to admit. "The administration gave no public hints that a draft might be coming and Congress was not anxious to take a vote on the controversial matter.
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines03/1230-06.htm

Moskos'  op-ed in the Chicago Tribune of June 8, 2005 was "Feel that draft?"  He feels that a draft "is the only answer to our nation security needs.  Such a draft would have three tiers of youth service, with 18-month tours of duty for citizens ages 18 to 25.  

The Pentagon had began a public campaign to fill the 10,000 draft positions and 11,000 appeals board slots. 

Conscientious objector issues came to public attention in mid-March 2004 when a Florida National Guardsmen refused to return to Iraq, claiming conscientious objector status.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61591-2004Mar15.html
Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia was among 600 others who were AWOL.  He stated, "I am saying 'no' to war.  I have chosen peace.  I went to Iraq and I was an instrument of violence.  Now I have decided to be an instrument of peace" (Chicago Tribune, 3/16/04). 

News in March 2005 was that 9 Americans were seeking refugee status in Canada.  One was a Conscientious Objector. Canada denied the asylum for Jeffrey Hinzman.

In mid-April, Ralph Nader saw the increasing likelihood of the draft just as President Bush was to ask for at least 10,000 more troops for Iraq.  The draft was ended in 1973 but the Selective Service since the fall of 2003 has been asking for personnel to fill draft boards and appeals boards.
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040412-114403-9384r.htm

One of the first Republicans to speak about the positive aspects of a draft was Vietnam Veteran Sen. Chuck Hagel. He feels Congress should consider it to ensure all Americans "bear some responsibly...pay some price" to defend the interest of the U.S. (Tribune, 4/22/04). 

As more members of Congress suggested the possibility of the draft in late April, Rumsfeld replied, "D don't know anyone in the executive branch...who believes it would be appropriate or necessary to reinstitute the draft" (Chicago Tribune, 4/23/04). 

Extended tours and "stop loss" policies faced by thousands of U.S. troops is likened by some of them as a draft, as the Post reported on June 3.  U.S. announced plans to pull thousands of troops out of South Korea and out of Germany.  Many would no doubt end up in Iraq.  Also see PS Troops.

Bills S89 and HR 163 sat on the armed services committees.  But Selective Service must report in March 2005 if the system is ready for activation. 

In the fall of 2004 the debate on the draft heated up again, with the House actually voting on the proposed draft bill.  The vote included was 402-2 against the draft.  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9479-2004Oct5?language=printer

Soon after the fall Fallujah offensive and about two weeks after the U.S. Presidential election, we first heard public comments about U.S. troops size.  Leaders want more troops.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2565-2004Nov21.html

The use of US troops was compared to the Civil War (hire a poor man to take one's place) and Vietnam (loophole-ridden draft) in the LA Times by Ronald Brownstein (12/27/04). 

A deadline of March 15 or March 31 2005 is when the Selective Service System (SSS) boards in every state must certify to  the President whether they will be ready for a possible call-up by June 15, 2005. Certain "skills" may be called up first, such as those with computer or linguistic expertise.  Draft boards and appeal boards have been being filled for months.  The need is for over 20,000 of these positions.  

On March 27 the New York Times featured a front-page lengthy investigative report on the lives of military recruiters.  The recruiters were ordered not to talk with the media.

J.E. McNeil is a leading expert on the military and the draft.  She is the executive director of the Center on Conscience and War and speaks about recruitment practices on high school and college campuses. 

Military recruiters in high schools must be given contact information for every student, based on the No Child Left Behind plan.  Must parents don't know about the opt-out form.  

In June 2005, new recruiting numbers continued to fall short of goals.  See much more at Troops FAQ

Bob Herbert's Times piece looks at why young people are not volunteering.  Herbert's "Someone Else's Child" (6/20/05) continues his harsh criticism of the war.  "It's easy to be macho when you have nothing at risk.  The hawks want the war to be fought with other people children, while their own children go safely off to college, or to the mall.  The number of influential American officials who have children in uniform in Iraq is miniscule...Desperate, the Army is lowering its stands, shortening tours, increasing bonuses and violating their own recruitment regulations and ethical guidelines.  American do not want to fight this war."

Herbert concludes by examining "the home-font 'warriors' who find it so easy to give the thumbs up to war...If the US had a draft (for which there is no political sentiment), its warriors would be drawn for a much wider swath of the population, and political leaders would think much longer and harder before committing the county to war."

Herbert added in his December 8 piece, "If this war is worth fighting, it's worth fighting right...To do that would required implementing a draft."

Fellow Times columnist Paul Krugman (5/30/05) worries about long-term recruitment.  "Much more serious, because it would be irreversible, would be a mass exodus of mi-career military professionals  "That's essentially how we broke the professional Army we took into Vietnam,' one officer told the national Journal. 'At some point, people decide they could no longer weather the back-to-back deployments.'  And we're already seeing stories about how young officers, facing the prospect of repeated harrowing tours of duty in a war whose end is hard to imagine, are reconsider whether they really want to stay in the military." 

Just the day before the Krugman column, the New York Times editorial (5/29/05) looks at troops and the volunteer army.  Recruiting is challenging because of too few groups, "inadequate armor, extend tours of duty and accelerated rotations back  into combat...The citizen-soldiers of the Guard and Reserves have suddenly become full-time warriors.  Not has it helped that when abuse scandal have erupted, the pentagon has seemed quicker to punish lower-ranking solders that top commanders and policy makers.  This negative cycle now threatens to fee on itself.  Fewer recruits will mean more stress on those now in uniform and more grim reports reaching hometowns across America." 

The editorial then examines how things could have been different of Gen. Shinseki's advice had been heeded about the number of troops to keep the insurgency down.  "There should be no thought of reinstating the draft, which would be military foolish and politically explosive." 

Charles Rangel brought the draft back into the news after the November US elections. He will propose a bill to re-instate the draft as "a way to deter politicians from launching wars." Actually, the bill would not mandate military service but service of some kind, including in schools. A Korean War veteran, Rangel (D-NY) feels, according to the Tribune, that the all-volunteer military "disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-income families." The bill appears to have little support among the public (about 70% oppose) and lawmakers (the last vote was 402-2).

Reaction to Rangel's proposal came from Charles Moskos, Northwestern Sociology professor and expert on the military. He is an ardent supporter of a draft and feels that "a country will accept casualties only when privileged youths are putting their loves on the line [too]." The last draft ended in 1973, the year the US left Vietnam.

The New York Times editorial board rejects the draft and are "distressed" by he idea. "We don't favor military conscription in general. And in this particular case, compelling military service won't achieve the things Mr. Rangel says he wants, either." Military leaders oppose a draft and the volunteer force represents a greater cross section of the country that the pre-1973 draft when "the wealthy and well-connected could get deferments...or assignments to safe alternatives, and many did. While there are plenty of underprivileged in the current force, at least they are there by their own choosing." The paper wishes the president "had called for...sacrifices after Sept. 11" like AmeriCorps.

Andrew Greeley, writing in The Chicago Sun-Times and frequent critic of the administration, feels that Rangel's proposal is "patently sick."

"While Iraq Burns" is Herbert's November 27, 2006 piece, coming in the days after the Thanksgiving attacks in Sadr City, the new most deadly day of the war. "Americans are shopping while Iraq burns. The competing television news images on the morning after Thanksgiving were of the unspeakable carnage...and car bombs...and the long lines of cars filled with holiday shopping zealots...There is something terribly wrong with this juxtaposition" because the war was started by the US "but most Americans feel absolutely no sense of personal responsibility for it." Without a draft, Americans aren't paying attention and don't care, surmises Herbert. "With no obvious personal stake...most Americans are indifferent to its consequences." A college student of the U. of Conn, a history major says, "I get the feeling that most people at school don't even think about the war. They're most concerned with what grade they got on yesterday's test." Added a Sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, "None of my friends even really care about what's going on in Iraq." The widespread indifference "enables most American to go about their daily lives completing unconcerned about the atrocities resulting from a war being waged in their name. "

In early 2007 with Bush's plan to add at least 21,000 more troops, Army readiness was questioned by an outgoing general. Without a war with Iran, a draft still seemed politically unlikely.

In the summer and fall of 2007, any possible draft rarely made the main stream media (MSM).

Throughout all of 2008, the possibility of the draft was hardly mentioned in much of the press.