I've constantly heard people claiming we should bring back the draft, I strongly disagree but I'm going to try present this in a fair and balanced way just stating the pros and cons of it.
On the pros side
1. We would (in theory) have more prominant members of society serving in our military. If more Congressmens sons and daughters were serving in the military they would be less likely to send our troops to war.
2. Instead of a military made up exclusively of people who couldn't get into college and get a good job we'd have an even mixture of society.
3. The military money spent on recruiting could be spent in other ways.
4. We would also be less likely to find ourselves short of soldiers.
On the Con side.
1. We would have lower morale just as a given. People who WANT to be someplace are happier by definition than those who are told to be some place.
2. Lower Quality soldiers. We might not be getting the best of the best in our military but there are various tests and standards that need to be met (until we start talking waivers) we aren't just throwing our hands into a hat and pulling out names.
3. Congress would have family in the war. I've always felt that leadership needs to be divorced from its military to an extent that they think of soldiers as tools to accomplish missions not as human beings. I don't think that I could send my father, daughter close friend or even the vast majority of associates off to die but that is what happens in war.
Now that we are in retrospect we have the ability to think about the individuals that were involved with World War 2, and Normandy beach. They deserve it. At the time the people making the decisions needed to look down say we lost X but we gained Z and move on.
In short I think that they might make the wrong decisions to protect loved ones.
What do you think?
