Conscience
Dec. 2nd, 2003 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumDavid Hackworth wrote a piece, back in '82, which I still recall the gist of, in which he excoriated the brass in the services for not standing up for what was right for their troops.
In it he decried the lack of resignations for conscience, specifically the Marine Colonel who allowed Washington to put his troops on guard-duty without ammo, in Beiruit.
Yesterday a captain in the US Army Reserves stood up and took the heat, in the way Hackworth said men of honor, and responsibility should.
He was relieved of duty because he refused to sign a waiver to have his unit sent to Afghanistan. The reason? They came back less than 10 months ago, and policy says they get at least one year between overseas deployments.
Doesn't seem too much to ask.
His career is pretty much shot. Even if he doesn't get cashiered, he won't be promoted past major, and probably not even that far.
It also means we'll probably see more commanders signing such waivers, because the drawdown (from ca. 130,000 troops to ca. 105,000) is also an increase in the number of Reserve Component troops (ca. 29,000 to ca. 43,000), and units such as Civil Affairs (as that Captain's was and Military Intelligence, and Military Police, are in short supply, and great demand.
Which begs another question, what will be done when the reservists have done their 2-years overseas, and can't be made to go back? The need will still be there, but they will be able to tell the Gov't to pound sand, and it wouldn't be mutiny.
In it he decried the lack of resignations for conscience, specifically the Marine Colonel who allowed Washington to put his troops on guard-duty without ammo, in Beiruit.
Yesterday a captain in the US Army Reserves stood up and took the heat, in the way Hackworth said men of honor, and responsibility should.
He was relieved of duty because he refused to sign a waiver to have his unit sent to Afghanistan. The reason? They came back less than 10 months ago, and policy says they get at least one year between overseas deployments.
Doesn't seem too much to ask.
His career is pretty much shot. Even if he doesn't get cashiered, he won't be promoted past major, and probably not even that far.
It also means we'll probably see more commanders signing such waivers, because the drawdown (from ca. 130,000 troops to ca. 105,000) is also an increase in the number of Reserve Component troops (ca. 29,000 to ca. 43,000), and units such as Civil Affairs (as that Captain's was and Military Intelligence, and Military Police, are in short supply, and great demand.
Which begs another question, what will be done when the reservists have done their 2-years overseas, and can't be made to go back? The need will still be there, but they will be able to tell the Gov't to pound sand, and it wouldn't be mutiny.
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Re: War
Date: 2003-12-06 11:04 am (UTC)If I were to accept one, it would have to be arbitrary, and dead fair. If a deferment is to be granted, it can't be a ticket out, just a deferment; i.e. when the deferment runs out, the deferred citizen has to go in.
In event of an active conflict (like the one we're in now) no deferements at all.
From a social standpoint one of the advantages of a draft would be to, more evenly, represent the commonwealth in the services. For all that they are nowhere near as monolithic as those who are not/have not been in them believe, they are a culture apart, and the self-selecting nature of the all-volunteer force creates a positive feedback which is making them a more apart culture every few years. If it goes on (though not in my career, and probably not in my, nor even my children's, life) we may find them so different that they no longer reflect the body politic, and only themselves.
Such disconnection between the military and the public leads to coups.
On the peace front, having more of the general public's relatives in the line of fire (esp. without those relatives volunteering) is likely to moderate any rush to conflict.
But, speaking for myself, I don't see any imminent draft. One, they have a semi-draft in the stop-loss policies (some servicemembers aren't allowed to leave the service, because they have needed skills) and two, it would be politically damaging to say, the, "army," can't handle a piss-pot war against a bunch of rag-tag hostiles.
TK
Re: War
Date: 2009-04-19 10:42 pm (UTC)I just friended you the other day and I was going back through you list to see what you'd written about the Taguba report when it came out and stumbled upon this.
Of course, this post is 5 years old now, but I wonder if you still feel the same about having a draft?
I agree with what you say on the self-selecting nature of the forces, but I wonder what it says to have a country at war(s) with a lack of people willing to fight in those wars.
Re: War
Date: 2009-04-20 03:17 am (UTC)Because the "lack of people willing to fight" isn't the same as a lack of people who enlist, and the sad-sacks who run about saying, "Yes, we need to do this, our very existence depends on winning this war, but I can't afford the cost of enlisting, so all those poor folks will have to do it for me" are keeping it going, when a draft would have stopped it cold.
The thing about a draft is how much it focuses the mind of the polity on fighting only wars of need, not wars of want.
Just look at the discussions of havig a draft. The Bush Administration refused; because that would have ended the whole endeavor. No one would be talking about, "invalidating the sacrifice" if it meant sending their kid over to be part of the hecatomb.