Thoughts on FP's article "CTRL + ALT + DELETE Resetting America's Military" by Shawn Brimley and and Paul Scharre

I think the first portion I struggle with, when speaking in regard to an "all volunteer force" is their idea of 'debt' and who foots the bill. Before we earned, in blood, our independence from the Crown of England, we had an "all volunteer force" that we know as the 'minute-man'. Each was responsible to provide his own clothing, weaponry, ammunition, et cetera. For those who could volunteer, but not provide a weapon, one was supplied to and for him, with no financial liability, nor condition of indentured servitude.

The article authors, however, offer this:

"We would institute a true volunteer force, whereby those in uniform would owe a certain amount of time to the military based on training received. If they chose to leave early -- which they would be free to do -- they would have to reimburse the government for the cost of the training they had acquired at taxpayer expense."

A volunteer "owes" nothing.

If I volunteer to mow you lawn, for instance, and you supply the mower and the fuel, and I decide mid-way not to finish the job once started, what do I "owe" you? You have half of your lawn mowed. Granted it's a chicken-shirt move on my part, but again: what do I owe you?

My guess is that you would find someone else to finish the job - another volunteer.

I may or not finish reading the article, but the authors seem to want to centralize the military leadership, make each service member an 'every-man', and then force service or payment for volunteering. We're already half-way there. They have not resolved their seeming and apparent issue with that, and then added debt in to the mix.

Not fond of the idea so far as I've read...

Sir,

Thank you for sharing this article. It was well thought out and put together. I forsee a lot of resistance to this idea, but ultimately I believe we all know that a Military set up today from scratch would not have so many archaic rules and regulations. Although my opinion means nothing, I would support an idea to revamp our military to a system like this.

Personally, I see way too much waste in resources in the way we run business. It would be refreshing to actually save the tax payers money and help take pressure off the Federal debt. Unfortunately we may never modernize, too many Big Wigs (3 and 4 Stars) with too much influence and power, and too much to lose. They'd never see to it that the top shrinks in size.