We are going to have to emulate  the Israeli and Swiss military models.
Universal military obligations for the entire US population, NO Deferments
for anything for anybody. In return, you will receive one year of PAID
college or trade school education for every year of service. For the
country, this will mean a 20,000,000 person continually trained military. By
the way, the Praetorian Guard really did not do that much to protect Caesar
did it. 
With the 'problem' looming in the Mideast, with our allies, the Saudis, and
the Syrians we are going to need every person who can sling a weapon, drive
a plane, a tank, a Bradley or a humvee. We are at war with an enemy much
worse than any Nazi, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese. 
"We have a problem, Houston" 

John Philip Adams

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Debra Jackson/Harold
Forsythe
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 10:59 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: June 6, 1944

Just an addendum to say thanks to Henry and Tom for additions and
clarifications.  I knew that the military academies had been difficult to
establish but did not know how really difficult that process was.

Regarding Vietnam, while it is true that the draft became unpopular because
of demonstrations (many in which I participated) but there actually was
another reason as well.  Just as some military figures, including General
Collin Powell (retired) have warned about the military possibly being broken
now, there was serious concern by the early 1970s about that possibility
then.  Indeed, in the briefs filed recently with the US Supreme Court by
retired Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretaries of Defense in support of
affirmative action at the University of Michigan, there was mention of the
need of a racially diverse officer corps so as to avoid the "fragging": of
officers that took place in Vietnam.

The draftee military of the Vietnam War had been seriously misused and had
become in important ways dysfunctional.  This had not been true of the
remarkably democratic draftee military discharged after VE and VJ days in
1945 or the draftee military after the Korean War ceasefire.  I attended
college with officers from the Vietnam War, who were given leave after their
deployment in the war zone to advance their education.  I taught US Vietnam
War vets for many years in California.  I finished my career in California,
teaching Vietnamese Vietnam War vets.  The trauma of Vietnam is still with
America:  at least, it is still with me, and I was not in the armed
services.  My fear is that what the Vietnam War did to the citizen-draftee
military in the 1960s and 1970s, the Iraq insurgency will do to the AVF of
the first decade of the 21st century.

Then, what are our options?  A Praetorian Guard called Blackwater?

Harold S. Forsythe