Many on RK may not like what I have to say, but I enlisted in 1959 for three years to erase the two year draft obligation hanging over my head with exemptions restricted to dead males(see Elvis Presley, e.g.)

I qualified for Army Language School where many of my barracks mates had Ivy League Master's Degrees and enlisted for 3 vice taking 2 years in the combat arms like Elvis did.  Wasn't any war on, but it really helped me as an 18 year old kid from a blue collar background to find out that rich kids could actually be nice guys when they needed you to cover their back.

I also learned that bridge players were only the penultimate card playing snobs lording it over us pinochle players.  The real snobs, all Ivy League, played WHIST while the rest of us watched future captains of industry and foreign service officers have fun.

They, on the other hand, learned that no matter what the sergeants required us to do, they were better off teaming with one of us blue collar troops than one of their social peers.  Before 3 months went by in a 12 month school program, some really close relationships were formed across social class lines by the time we graduated and were split up again to go to different assignments, me to Officer Candidate School.

Rumsfeld screwed the military really horribly when he marginalized Shinseki, and we now have Shinseki's successor several times removed doing penance for the generals Rummy was able to co-opt(A KGB technique) with promises of promotions which he delivered in return for promises that they would not publicly ask for additional troops.

That's all I have for now.  I'm tired and disappointed and I guess you could say "pissed off" that General Casey didn't see these problems while he was overall commander in Iraq.  He no longer commands as Chief of Staff.  His job now is to provide the Defense Department and , hopefully, America an Army that can fight when called upon by the Congress BECAUSE, RK fans of the Constitution, only the Congress has the power to declare war.

Your post spins off further facts that may interest some.  In your entry year, as well as mine 7 years later, enlistees were rejected for even slight physical, educational, social, psychological, and legal deficiencies.  The Army was very particular and even draftees were held to pretty high standards.  It was thought that the Army had little time for training problem individuals who would likely continue to be problem individuals.  It was a different era and a different military culture.

The focus of the training was to produce and deploy citizen-soldiers who could and would make a positive contribution with little difficulty and few problems.  After discharge we were carried for some years on the inactive reserve rolls and the military leaders were assured that, in a crisis, there was always a large reserve of dependable, proven individuals with a lot of the right experience and training.    

When the Vietnam war escalated around 1965, the draft numbers went higher and so did enlistments because as you have explained, an enlistee could serve a third year and have a few more options for training and assignment.  So, it could be argued that every enlistee was technically a "draft dodger".   Nevertheless, entrance requirements for both draftee and enlistee were still rigid, although the Army conducted a dubious social experiment where it accepted several hundred thousand draftees with low basic educational skills.  

Today, the Army has lowered the entry requirements to almost ground level.  Our recruiting campaign is bringing into the Army thousands of new soldiers who should not be in uniform.  Problems include criminal records, drug use, moral waivers, non-high school graduates, pregnant non-deployable from Basic Training and, the lowest mental categories, as well as new recruits up to age 42.  Instead of rejecting high maintenance problem individuals, we are paying many of them  huge "signing" bonuses.  The result can be seen above in General Casey's observations.  

I believe that a draft is in the future or we should forget the bold hyperbole that we are the world's greatest and only super-power.  General Casey has essentially stated that the Army has already started to unravel!!

and I agree with you, ESPECIALLY with your use of the word: "military culture."  A lot of jokes have been written about it by those who were in it and those who were not, but those who were in it came out of the experience much bigger in terms of "Being American" than when they went in an subjected themselves to the HUMBLING process of basic training or Officer Candidate School.

BUT I THINK AND ADVOCATE VOCIFEROUSLY that a draft, with pay and benefits NOT REDUCED from those on the books for the Volunteer Army, should have a 2 year go to Infantry, Artillery, or Armor (Elvis Preley's branch) or a 4 year enlistment in intelligence/counterintelligence or technical fiel requiring a year or more of schooling before first duty assignment.

There must be some kind of "retirement guarantee" for when things change and America no longer needs your services and doesn't want to be on the hook for your medical and retirement benefits.

If we can get guys like John Bruhns (see his post and my comment elsewhere)for office when they've survived their combat tour we will have a Congress that will know (John, you'll have to kick in on this one) that a FLAG BURNING Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is Crap!  What we NEED is an Amendment that when "The Commander in Chief sends troops of the land, sea, and air military forces into combat in foreign lands, OR GOD FORBID, within the boundaries of the United States, they will receive priority care for their medical and economic needs upon their return to the United States.

Someday I may say more, but I wonder if any RK members are interested enough to comment.

Buzzbolt,

It seems to me that the problems is that the military has been misused in Iraq.

Our military wasn't set up for wars of occupation. To a large extent, it was meant to be a quiet threat during diplomatic negotiations.

The adventure in Iraq and the initial refusal of Rumsfeld to increase the military after 911, when there was the political support to do this, are the main cause of the problem.

There was this nonsensical idea after 911 that our technology mean that one US soldier counted for N foreign soldiers. And in conventional war this may be right.

However, being an occupation force fighting guerrilla insurgents is a different kind of engagement. By the time the White House and Rumsfeld realized this, the support to increase the military had evaporated being replaced with a strong opposition to a draft.

Since the pool of people to fight the war became smaller, the solution for these two bit managers was to overwork the soldiers. This is bad management when one is running a deli, and fatal when running our military.

On top of that, it quickly spread out how our leaders were penny pinching when it came to our soldiers. They were given bad water, bad body armor, weak vehicles, denied medical treatment, etc. Oh, and their tours of duty were repeatedly extended.

Who in their right mind would want to join such an organization? Moreover, who would want to join it when you must risk your life when the political leaders make it clear that they are not willing to look after you or their families if something goes wrong?

When the draft was abolished, Army doctrine became focused on a "lean and mean" force that depended less on manpower and more on high-tech weapons.  Many military planners were worried that, without a draft, the Army was vulnerable to being misused for flawed foreign policy by autocratic civilian bosses.  We have seen this happen and Americans are not going to like how it all ends.