Should we bring the draft back?

CPT(P) Jake Ledgerwood 3.5 million kids were projected to graduate high school in 2016-17. All components of the Army are about one million. We would have to support all these people. Come up with something meaningful for them to do (so they don't resent it). It would be at least 24 months to get anything from them from a utility stand point. The nation would have to really accept the fact that we would take to take off the gloves compared to an all volunteer service and its policies, benefits, and culture. We would have to give carte Blanche to Company Commanders and more importantly, NCOs. Can you imagine the social media butt hurt from draftees? We would also likely have to bring back CCF and local stockades. Americans are able to endure drafted service and the privation (real or imagined) if they see the purpose in it. If they don't buy it, then it will be bad for all the professional centurions who have to keep the Army rolling along. But grass, motor pools, rocks, parking lots, PMCS, command inspection checklists would look great. No excuses, oodles of people to do all that. Part of the soldier task invention we would need to keep them busy. I don't want anyone fighting beside me that doesn't want to be there, resenting the military. Service must be valued, meaningful, and useful.

Equipping all these youngsters. I think the clothing bag value is about $500. CIF will issue them $4-6000 worth of kit. Each one will need to be issued a $500 rifle. Each will receive in aggregate $1M in training just to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We would likely have to invent a few MOS's. Each one getting three hots and a cot every day for 18-24 months. Installation functions could revert to Soldiers by MOS or by BMM. I would prefer the former.

We would have to build installations, possibly out of virgin land, probably done by these same draftees who need something to do. Would need MILCON in the trillions for barracks, motorpools, DFACs just to make the self licking ice cream cone work.

How much more materiel would we need to procure: vehicles, tanks, Bradleys, APCs, aircraft. Can't just have a bunch of millenials running around in the woods with sticks.

Some say national service is the answer. I personally don't think treading water for a year or two cleaning up inner city neighborhoods is going to resound with the same value as surviving the forge of initial entry training in the armed forces. Another option I think has merit is that the UN consistently suffers from the lack of standing formations for urgent humanitarian missions. This could be a source of do gooders to go deal with disaster and genocide rather than people expressing moral outrage for 15 minutes on social media.

The real question is will the nation accept the burden and will the country benefit from the investment?

We need a draft system in case of total war. Citizens need to be prepared for national service if it comes to that. To your question, I think the problem is "we protect what we love". Each successive generation since Vietnam doesn't really feel that love of country in the passion and volume as before. They have been raised in a time and climate where people in authority have out right contempt for our government, and political leadership hasn't given them much to cheer about. Robert Heinlein once said that if no one wants to serve we should let the whole damn thing fall. At the end of it all, I think people will benefit and be better citizens if they had some skin in the game. Frankly most Americans today, have no idea how good they have it. I didn't realize fully how good we had it until I saw other places, ironically the Army is how I got to see t with my own eyes and no agenda driven narrative to go with it. I took it on faith that I was raised with that we had the best thing going, however flawed and problematic our system is. No one enjoys the freedom or security we take for granted.

Draft, do it like some of the European Armies did, and have compulsory service, Health and Human Services, Peace Corp, US Census, Corp of Engineers, National Park Services. Not just limited to DoD.

I believe our military is stronger because it's made up of people who chose to be there. Start throwing in people who were given no choice and I think the military would suffer. With that said, I think getting out of this lap of luxury and seeing how the other 99% of the world lives would be a valuable lesson for many. Serving others would bring about positive changes but I'm not sure that it can be forced onto people. I like the idea but doubt we'd see the results we wanted.