The Draft

Snow

Member
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469
The Draft

Kerry says the first thing Bush will do is start a draft.

Bush says no way he will have a draft.

I don't see how either of them can expect to keep up the "war on terror" without more allies (you know, like some with actual standing armies?) or a draft.

Today two stories got my attention:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/22/us.armyca...p.ap/index.html



843 ex-soldiers fail to report for Army duty
Friday, October 22, 2004 Posted: 5:14 PM EDT (2114 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 800 former soldiers have failed to comply with Army orders to get back in uniform and report for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army said Friday. That is more than one-third of the total who were told to report to a mobilization station by October 17.

Three weeks ago the number stood at 622 amid talk that any who refused to report for duty could be declared Absent Without Leave. Refusing to report for duty normally would lead to AWOL charges, but the Army is going out of its way to resolve these cases as quietly as possible.

In all, 4,166 members of the Individual Ready Reserve have received mobilization orders since July 6, of which 2,288 were to have reported by October 17. The others are to report in coming weeks and months.

Of those due to have reported by now, 1,445 have done so, but 843 have neither reported nor asked for a delay or exemption. That no-show rate of 37 percent is roughly in line with the one-third rate the Army had forecast when it began the mobilization to fill positions in regular and Reserve units. By comparison, the no-show total of 622 three weeks ago equated to a 35 percent rate.

Of the 843, the Army has had follow-up contact with 383 and is seeking to resolve their cases, according to figures made public Friday. For the 460 others, \"We are still working to establish positive contact,\" the Army said. Some may not have received the mailed orders.

Members of the Individual Ready Reserve, or IRR, are rarely called to active duty. The last time was 1990, when nearly 20,000 were mobilized. IRR members are people who were honorably discharged after finishing their active-duty tours, usually four to six years, but remained in the IRR for the rest of the eight-year commitment they made when they joined the Army. They are separate from the reserve troops who are more routinely mobilized -- the National Guard and Reserve.

The Army anticipated, based on past experience, that about one-third of the IRR people it called up would be disqualified for medical or other reasons. The trend so far bears that out.

The Marine Corps, meanwhile, said Friday that a Marine killed in western Iraq earlier this week, Sgt. Douglas E. Bascom, 25, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, was a member of the Individual Ready Reserve. He was the first IRR Marine to die in Iraq, according to Gunnery Sgt. Kristine Scharber, a spokeswoman at Marine Corps headquarters in the Pentagon.

There are about 400 IRR Marines deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Shane Darbonne, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Mobilization Command.

Army officials said they were uncertain whether any of their Individual Ready Reserve members have been killed in Iraq.

That the Army has had to reach so deeply into its store of reserve soldiers is a measure of the strain the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns have put on the active-duty Army. When the American invading force toppled Baghdad in April 2003, the Army thought it would be sending most of its soldiers home within months. Instead, it has kept 100,000 or more there ever since.

While the number of IRR Army soldiers who have failed to comply with their mobilization order has increased this month, so has the number who have asked for a delay or to be excused from serving.

The number who have requested delays or exemptions has grown from 1,498 (out of a total of 3,899 mobilization orders) in late September to 1,671 (out of a total of 4,166 orders) as of October 17. A little over one-third of the requests have been acted on, with 584 approved and 21 denied.

The Army said some withdrew their requests even after they had been approved. It did not say how many.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Female soldiers eyed for combat - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - October 22, 2004

Female soldiers eyed for combat

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Army is negotiating with civilian leaders about eliminating a women-in-combat ban so it can place mixed-sex support companies within warfighting units, starting with a division going to Iraq in January.

Despite the legal prohibition, Army plans already have included such collocation of women-men units in blueprints for a lighter force of 10 active divisions, according to Defense Department sources.

An Army spokesman yesterday, in response to questions from The Washington Times, said the Army is now in discussions with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's staff to see whether the 10-year-old ban in this one area should be lifted. The ban prohibits the Army from putting women in units that \"collocate\" with ground combatants.

\"When that policy was made up, there was a different threat,\" said Lt. Col. Chris Rodney, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. \"We imagined a more linear combat environment. Now, with the nature of asymmetrical threats, we have to relook at that policy.\"

Col. Rodney cited the fighting in Iraq as typifying the new threat whereby all soldiers, support or combat, face attack by rockets, mortars, roadside bombs and ambushes.

\"Everybody faces a similar threat,\" he said. \"There is no front-line threat right now.\"

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Army has suffered 793 combat deaths, including 24 female soldiers.

The Army is not seeking to lift the ban on women in direct combat units, such as infantry or armor.

What is being examined is the part of the exclusion rule that says mixed-sex support companies may not be positioned with ground combat teams.

In the disputed instance, the transformation plan of Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, calls for creating Forward Support Companies, which are made up of men and women. These companies would collocate with reconnaissance squadrons, which are combat units and are part of larger brigade \"units of action.\"

The problem is a 1994 ban signed by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin that excludes women from land combat units. Mr. Aspin added an additional restriction. Women could not serve \"where units and positions are doctrinally required to physically collocate and remain with direct ground combat units that are closed to women.\"

Some Pentagon officials, who asked not to be named, said the proposed Forward Support Companies are at the least \"skirting\" the existing ban if not violating it. They suspect the new units are a way to inch women closer to land combat despite Congress' prohibition against it.

Elaine Donnelly, who leads the pro-military Center for Military Readiness, says Congress needs to be informed of the Army's plans.

\"There is a law requiring notice to Congress that has not happened, and there are regulations that forbid the Army from taking infantry units and collocating gender-integrated units with them,\" said Mrs. Donnelly, who opposes women in combat. \"If they are doing this, putting women in land combat units would be a violation of law and policy.\"

The Pentagon long has banned women from combat roles. In the early 1990s, the new Clinton administration changed the rules by allowing women for the first time to serve on combat ships and pilot combat aircraft, such as jet fighters and helicopters.

But the Pentagon retained the ban on women participating in direct combat and issued the new Aspin rules.

Mr. Aspin said in a January 1994 memo to the services that \"women should be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground.\" The policy then defined direct combat as \"engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew-served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile force's personnel. Direct combat takes place well forward on the battlefield while locating and closing with the enemy to defeat them by fire, maneuver, or shock effect.\"

Mr. Aspin then went further in denying collocation of mixed-sex and combat units. The Army accepted the limitation, documents show.

The 3rd Infantry Division, which played a major role in the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, is scheduled to return to Iraq early next year. It would be the first division to be reconfigured into \"units of action\" that would contain the new mixed-sex Forward Support Companies.

In all, Gen. Schoomaker is increasing the number of combat brigades from 33 to 48, and naming them \"units of action.\" The brigades are being married up permanently with support units so they can move out more quickly to war zones, instead of waiting for the additional personnel to arrive.

Early in the Bush administration, Mrs. Donnelly successfully persuaded the Pentagon to restrict female soldiers from certain reconnaissance units after Army planners had penciled them into those new units.
Your thoughts?

Snow Fire Watches
 

CaryP

Senior Member
Messages
1,432
The Draft

Great articles, Snow. Yep, we'll have a draft that will be enacted no later than March 31, 2005 is my bet. Could happen much sooner, but if we get a change in the White House, Bush will want Kerry to be the one to sign the legislation that authorizes it. Of course that assumes that the presidential election won't be tied up in the courts. The name will be the National Service System, where men and women between 18 and 34 can be drafted for civilian positions in the federal govt. as well as the military. Part of the new system will require those in this age range to give a list of any training or skills they have acquired. They're already getting ready to have a medical personnel draft on medical positions up to age 44 "in case of a national emergency or military needs". Sounds kinda ominous to me.

Cary
 

Unintentional

Active Member
Messages
577
The Draft

Have you seen the news today, 10-24-2004, about the army captain who sued Rumsfield so he could retire and not be forced to go back to Iraq? I don't know the whole story, but an army officer who has been for 8 years and is only a captain is total looser...and apparently he is also a coward.
 

CaryP

Senior Member
Messages
1,432
The Draft

Originally posted by Unintentional@Oct 24 2004, 04:34 PM
Have you seen the news today, 10-24-2004, about the army captain who sued Rumsfield so he could retire and not be forced to go back to Iraq? I don't know the whole story, but an army officer who has been for 8 years and is only a captain is total looser...and apparently he is also a coward.


Well Uni, why don't you go take this "loser" and "coward's" place in Iraq, especially in light of your strong support of the war. Just think you could help W stamp out communism. Be a patriot and pick up a weapon against the commie pinko enemies of the state. Just do it over there in the coward/loser's place. Zeig Heil!!

Cary
 

PyRo99

Active Member
Messages
567
The Draft

Well Uni, call me a draft dodger, call me an asshat, but I refuse to defend this country from something I do not believe in. These idiots, orchastrated it all, they pulled it off, innocently. Dick Cheney, somehow knows that there will be a terrorist attack, if Kerry is elected. Well, that sheds some fear down some peoples' backs, because they don't want another 9/11, nor do I.

I'd sue too, if I had to go to war, something I did not support. I don't support our government, and I certainly do not support the war. However, I do support the troops, for giving their lives up for some covered up stack of poop.

*Waves at the Governement*
 

Unintentional

Active Member
Messages
577
The Draft

Well I do admire him for not just "walking away". It is amazing that their are 37% no shows. This guy had the guts to actually sue to be released from active duty. Perhaps his case will encourage others to stand up against this back door draft instead of running away.

I apologize for calling him a coward.

Still I was in Desert Storm 1 protecting "scud mall" in Haifa and watching the fireworks from the patriot missiles. I think I am still in the IR (US Navy go into the Inactive Reserve, Army go into Individual Ready Reserve). Never heard from them since I was honorably discharged. I was discharged 8 years ago, that captain was discharged in February. If they are that bad they want someone who has been out 8 years living large and have gotten very large, they are in bad shape.

The soldier I was referring to is in this story:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-...p-regional-wire

I apologize to all.
 

The_Ruffneck

Member
Messages
282
The Draft

Heh you Americans think you are in trouble? I been reading some 'predictions' and they all seem to point to China attacking Australia , if thats the case i think there'd be at least 80% conscription rate , not to mention females in the front line. 1.3billion vs 20 million ?
 

ZeoEmeraude

Active Member
Messages
968
The Draft

I think the draft is enevitable. When I focus on this current loss of life in Iraq, I have to ponder the fact that not everyone wantz to fight or kill. I just have one word to say regarding it............Canada.









*May Peace favor you*
 

Unintentional

Active Member
Messages
577
The Draft

Maybe in the middle east we should just go back to per world war 1 and start all over deciding what area is what country.

Pretty much everything in the ME is due to people who don't live there deciding what land is what country. Since no one there trust America, Americans will never be able to solve this problem. We just need to back out and let them decide themselves or let them pick a country they all trust to help solve this. But something tells me what ever country that turns out to be will become just as hated as America.
 

ZeoEmeraude

Active Member
Messages
968
The Draft

Well, ya can lead a horse to water.........
I think the whole ME situation is problematic for current political change in the world. These countries have been fighting over religion, oil, etc. for so long that I think they have forgotton what truly started it. History has taught us that when you oppress people under harsh rule, then it leads to the downfall of a nation. With the Iraq situation, and the draft...I say pull our ppl out, let the world see if they can handle thier problems without the help of peaceful nations.





*May peace favor you*
 

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