Draftees are generally better soldiers than volunteer enlisted men
Posted by John T. Reed on
I suspect he may not have been able to immediately resign. Career officers are constantly going to various schools and I think each creates a new commitment. I do not know the deal in the Civil War but the WW II brass could not resign in a snitt as far as I know. And I don’t think you can resign during a deployment.
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We won the Battle of Gettysburg without Hooker or the additional men he said he needed.
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Hackworth was correct. The draftees were a cross section of society. Famous draftees include Elvis, Teddy Kennedy, Ralph Nader. When I was in, we had both draftees and volunteers. The enlisted volunteers tended to be more immature, younger, and too often probably the biggest loser in their high school class.
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The knock you hear on draftees is they are no good “because they don’t want to be there.” Pardon me, for actually commanding both draftees and volunteers and thereby knowing what I am talking about in contrast to the younger generation who never laid eyes on a draftee.
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In Vietnam, NO ONE wanted to be there. It was a freaking war. Duh. The most popular songs there were “We gotta get out of this place” and “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.”
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Actually, there were some guys who extended. I suspect they were volunteers, not draftees, for the most part. And they were not extending to get shot at more. They were extending because of the cheap prostitutes and cheap, readily available illegal drugs which they felt made Vietnam in a war a better place to be than the U.S.
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Draftees, by definition, do not want to be there. But they do their duty. Volunteers tend to feel they were defrauded, that the military sucks and is not the fun macho adventure they thought it would be. A great many such volunteers are really pissed. Draftees, generally find the military to be what they expected.
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Draftees only serve two years (for the duration in the World Wars). Volunteers have to sign up for at least three—or at least that was the deal when I was in. When you defraud people, they shorter you have them around after they realize they have been defrauded, the better.
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Draftees won the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. We would have lost those wars without them. The majority of military personnel in the two world wars were draftees. The current U.S. all-volunteer military has never won a war. But we are told volunteers are a “more professional” military. If they are so “professional,” why don’t they win?
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I invite those who are so quick to dismiss America’s millions of citizen soldier draftees to wise up. Reading my article should do it. That unusual article has caused a number of anti-draft people to switch sides, which is a hell of an accomplishment for an article.
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https://www.johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-blog-about-military-matters/66448067-should-there-be-a-military-draft
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