Army desertion rates up 80% since invasion of Iraq in 2003

[ggreg]

The draft during the Vietnam era was a travesty, because of the government's educational deferment program.  The rich boys stayed in college and the poor boys who couldn't afford college got drafted.  A universal conscription with no exceptions would solve that.

There are always exceptions.  He's got flat feet!  He's a perfect candidate to work in the general's staff 1000 miles from the front line.  The rich kids are always going to get the best of any system since they know the ropes and their fathers can do favours for the people making the selection.

[wolseley]

Mandatory military service is a dumb idea.  Even the professional solider comes out moaning and groaning about post-traumatic stress from a 6 month tour.  Imagine the mess you'd have at the close of a war if you sent a bunch of people that didn't want to be there.  Some men like fighting and some don't.  We don't draft people into investment banking or working for the IRS so why the army?

It's a wonder we ever won World War II with all those draftees that didn't want to be there, isn't it?  ;)

There are always exceptions.  He's got flat feet!

Then he goes to work in a war-related industry, building airplanes.

He's a perfect candidate to work in the general's staff 1000 miles from the front line.

Only if he scores higher at that than he does at hitting a bulls-eye at 500 meters 90 times out of 100.  If he's better at being an infantryman, then he's an infantryman.
 

The rich kids are always going to get the best of any system since they know the ropes and their fathers can do favours for the people making the selection.

Then it's not "universal with no exceptions", is it?  I'm advocating a universal draft, with no exceptions.  ;)

[pander44us]

Eventually I'll figure out how to use the quotes on here.

In all seriousness, I would not want you programming in the co-ordinates for an air-strike or missile launch !!!

Mandatory military service is a dumb idea.  Even the professional solider comes out moaning and groaning about post-traumatic stress from a 6 month tour.  Imagine the mess you'd have at the close of a war if you sent a bunch of people that didn't want to be there.  Some men like fighting and some don't.  We don't draft people into investment banking or working for the IRS so why the army?

The reality is that we are killing 50 Taleban and Islamic militiamen in Iraq for every coalition soldier they kill.  In any other war in history that would be a whitewash and out media would be laughing at the enemy as the useless disorganized primitives that they are.  But with the liberalism we have today, 100-200 dead soldiers is spun into a huge protracted tragedy.  A plane crash would kill as many people and be forgotten about by the weekend.  More allied soldiers were killed in the first 24 hours of the Allied Invasion of Europe than have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan to date and that was considered a huge success.

HaH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Wondered how long it was going to take till somebody said something Never programmed co-ordinates for anything BTW,was an infantryman(airborne)

[BobR]

Up 80% hmmm. With that many going over the wall you would think I would at least know one of them. They should be dealt with in accordance with military law. They signed a contract and took the oath. If they don't want to go and fight there are ways of getting out of fighting. All they need to do is go to JAG.

[ggreg]

HaH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Wondered how long it was going to take till somebody said something Never programmed co-ordinates for anything BTW,was an infantryman(airborne)

You've figured out quotes now I see.

[ggreg]

It's a wonder we ever won World War II with all those draftees that didn't want to be there, isn't it?  ;)

Different age.  Fewer men were such gutless wimps, desperate to make any compromise to cling to their life and fighting was less complex.  There was also much more cohesion in society, such that to not go to war would have stigmatized you as something of a coward.  Nowadays, most European metrosexuals would run for the hills and their mothers, sisters and fathers would be on protest marches.  Better Red (or any other color) than dead, is the mindset of this generation.

I could not see the Roman hierarchy supporting a war under any circumstances today.  Even if Iran threw its entire arsenal at Israel I honestly could not see the Vatican backing an Israeli response.  They're hand-wringing wimps.

He's a perfect candidate to work in the general's staff 1000 miles from the front line.

Only if he scores higher at that than he does at hitting a bulls-eye at 500 meters 90 times out of 100.  If he's better at being an infantryman, then he's an infantryman.

So Daddy sends a text message to Jr's mobile and tells him to shoot to the left, and then calls Major Smith who was his buddy at Yale or Sandhurst, strings are pulled.  There is no such thing as a universal draft for the simple reason that richer and more connected men who don't believe in an afterlife, don't want their sons posted back in bits from a war.  If you don't believe in something higher than your life then going to war and risking death or serious injury is crackers.

Having not aborted Junior 23 years ago and spent $700,000 on his education, why would Daddy want him dead?

A universal draft can only work in a country not rife with corruption and you only have to look at Iraq and Afghanistan today to realize how corrupt the business of modern warfare is.  Private contractors being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to "protect" senior military personnel in Iraq when professional soldiers are making FAR less.  $120 paid for each bag of laundry.

Universal Draft?  Pull the other one (it has bells on it).

[wolseley]

I agree with you, ggreg; it's unfortunate that the erstwhile United States is not what it once was.

[ggreg]

Nowhere is.  Not only has warfare itself changed but the countries that are equipped to most effectively wage it have changed to.  The US is arguably the best of a bad bunch of formerly Christian and now apostate nations.

The parallels to the fall of the Roman Empire are many.

[Fortunatus]

Is there any official position of the Catholic Church regarding the war in Iraq ?

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

Is there any official position of the Catholic Church regarding the war in Iraq ?

I believe both the present Pope and John Paul II opposed the war in Iraq. But as for an official position, not exactly infallible (someone correct me if I'm wrong).