How would you deal with a draft?

[Toro]

RE: How would you deal wi

Well, it would depend what round I was being drafted in, but I'd make sure I'd have an agent who could get me 10% above last year's pick.

 

[Kreskin]

Are they drafting many 45-year olds? I chose 8.

 

[Finder]

depends if I agreed with the war or not. Also if we learned anything from ww2 is that the soldure has to be smart enough not to follow illegal orders. Of course this only really counts if you are on the losing side I guess.

 

[tracy]

Depends on the context. It probably wouldn't be a real issue for me since I'm a nurse. They'd just put me into a hospital, probably working OR.

 

[notme01]

easy i would close the door or window

 

[Mogz]

RE: How would you deal wi

I'm against drafts. Drafted soldiers aren't dedicated and therefore get people killed. I.e. Vietnam War.

 

[thecdn]

What are the chances of Canada ever having a draft again?

Now, in the empire I currently live, where the emperor starts wars just because he can, that's another story.

Since permanent residents are subject to a draft, I'd be sending my son back to Canada very quickly if they implemented a draft here.

 

[Finder]

Re: RE: How would you deal wi

I'm against drafts. Drafted soldiers aren't dedicated and therefore get people killed. I.e. Vietnam War.

Well in history at times of crisis, drafts have been successful and have been apart of human history since ancient times. If your being attacked by aggressor who has a large conscription army would it not be productive to introduce the same way to get troops if you may lose with your current smaller froce?

I'm only for the draft when your nation is in (real) crsis. At all other times there should be no draft.

 

[Mogz]

RE: How would you deal wi

Oh i'll agree Finder that for sure a draft is the best way to pad your military manpower. However, sadly that padding more ofthen than not is a damned liability.

 

[Finder]

Re: RE: How would you deal wi

Oh i'll agree Finder that for sure a draft is the best way to pad your military manpower. However, sadly that padding more ofthen than not is a damned liability.

See I don't know, as long as you use the draft for defenive purposes it seems to work. A war of aggression on the other hand the people tend to not, well see the point in the war.

I'm a 110% supporter of a draft when your nation is in trouble. But I'm also against it during peace times and for a war of aggression such as Vietnam and yes even Iraq. But historically drafts have been apart of almost every great nation in history.

 

[Finder]

Oh here's a little history lession on the draft. during the very early Roman republic and even the earlyier Roman city state kingdom, when the plebs were drafted for a war which many felt was unjust, they simply refused to get drafted, left and formed there own community untill the crisis was over and the Senate was more reasonable.

 

[Colpy]

Re: RE: How would you deal wi

Oh i'll agree Finder that for sure a draft is the best way to pad your military manpower. However, sadly that padding more ofthen than not is a damned liability.

I used this argument in a history class discussion at university and our prof.......an ex-military man, cut me to pieces.

I argued draftees would not fight with the same determination as would volunteers.......

He claimed (reasonably) that soldiers don't fight for ideals.....they fight for the Regiment (their comrades), and you are as much a part of that drafted or volunteer. He claimed there was no evidence draftees were less effective in the field than volunteers.

That is the Readers' Digest Condensed version of the argument. It got fairly hot, and he came to me after class to say he was not a supporter of the idea of conscription either, but was playing the Devil's Advocate. He stood by his arguments.

Interesting.......

 

[Finder]

Colpy, drafted solduers may not be the best, but if you need em you need em. You can't just sit around with an inadequate number of tropps which may actually indirectly cause more deaths of the troops you do not wish to die.

Also with the right training draftees will be given the rights tools to survive and self preservation and defeanding the "home-land" and the people in it including there children will allow them to fight harder.

This whole anti draft idea has come into the american psyche from Vietnam, Korea and even now with the idea it could be used for Iraq. These are wars where you can not fight with draftee's because there is no threat, at least direct threat to the homeland, friends and family, but are imperalist, wars of aggression, or thats the perception of them.

If there is a direct threat to the homeland, and your current army is believed to small or will take heavy losses because if it's numbers, drafting a army is the best way to go.

I do believe in a sence that it is basically apart of our social contract of sorts, that if our nation is at war and there is a real threat to the nation and the people living in it that it has always been the mens (and now womens) duty as a member of society to fight to protect that homeland.

However wars of imperalism, aggression and lack of diplomacy have had problems with the draft because in a sence it is the government or leaders breaking the social contract with the men and women who live in the nation/communities who only go to war when threatend and thus risk there life for the right cause. If they risk there life for personal gain of the nation/leaders, ruling class, then the draft is almost usless.


Wish I had time to write this out better.

 

[Colpy]

Colpy, drafted solduers may not be the best, but if you need em you need em. You can't just sit around with an inadequate number of tropps which may actually indirectly cause more deaths of the troops you do not wish to die.

Also with the right training draftees will be given the rights tools to survive and self preservation and defeanding the "home-land" and the people in it including there children will allow them to fight harder.

This whole anti draft idea has come into the american psyche from Vietnam, Korea and even now with the idea it could be used for Iraq. These are wars where you can not fight with draftee's because there is no threat, at least direct threat to the homeland, friends and family, but are imperalist, wars of aggression, or thats the perception of them.

If there is a direct threat to the homeland, and your current army is believed to small or will take heavy losses because if it's numbers, drafting a army is the best way to go.

I do believe in a sence that it is basically apart of our social contract of sorts, that if our nation is at war and there is a real threat to the nation and the people living in it that it has always been the mens (and now womens) duty as a member of society to fight to protect that homeland.

However wars of imperalism, aggression and lack of diplomacy have had problems with the draft because in a sence it is the government or leaders breaking the social contract with the men and women who live in the nation/communities who only go to war when threatend and thus risk there life for the right cause. If they risk there life for personal gain of the nation/leaders, ruling class, then the draft is almost usless.


Wish I had time to write this out better.

Not a problem.

I am not a believer in conscription myself. My post above was simply meant as a inspiration for debate on the effectiveness of conscripted soldiers....

I am divided. I believe we all owe our nation something (as it is, anyway), but I recoil from the idea of giving the nation the power to order the unwilling to kill, or to die, on command.

 

[ol' dawg]

How would I deal with a draft?

Well, usually after paying for it I drink it. Mmmmmmmmmmmm beer.

On a more srious note - a 62 year old with bad knees isn't likely going to have to worry about it.

But I do remember some American friends who I was around the night they had a lottery to decide order of drafting according to birthdays ( around 1970). One guy was pretty worried he may have to go to 'Nam because of his position - he never did get drafted. Another guy was 4F and didn't have to worry about it, although he gat called into the draft office. Most Amercian young guys were very nervous about it from what I heard, nobody I knew wanted to go.

There was a scene in The Two Towers where Aragorn said something like, 'These people are farmers, not warriors'. That phrase always stuck with me because some people do like to go to war, while others don't feel that way.

I met a guy who was in the Canadian forces, but had finished his term; and when I asked him if he was glad he wasn't in the forces anymore, he answered that he wanted to go overseas and be involved in the conflict. I couldn't understand it, but then I'm more of a pacifist. I understand there is a need to defend yourself, but I don't have that fighting personality.

I'd rather enjoy a cold, refreshing draft. :cheers:

 

[Mogz]

RE: How would you deal wi

See I don't know, as long as you use the draft for defenive purposes it seems to work. A war of aggression on the other hand the people tend to not, well see the point in the war.

Oh I couldn't agree more there. Using men and women to defend their homes is an excellent idea. Any bright individual will fight for his home and/or family without asking questions. In an agressive role i'm inclined to think that draftees would be less effective in the long run than dedicated soldiers.

I used this argument in a history class discussion at university and our prof.......an ex-military man, cut me to pieces.

I argued draftees would not fight with the same determination as would volunteers.......

He claimed (reasonably) that soldiers don't fight for ideals.....they fight for the Regiment (their comrades), and you are as much a part of that drafted or volunteer. He claimed there was no evidence draftees were less effective in the field than volunteers.

That is the Readers' Digest Condensed version of the argument. It got fairly hot, and he came to me after class to say he was not a supporter of the idea of conscription either, but was playing the Devil's Advocate. He stood by his arguments.

Interesting.......

The thing is Colpy, a draftee, more often than not, doesn't want to be where he/she is. Is a persons not inclined to be doing what their doing going to be as effective as an individual motived by their job? While I refuse to lump all draftees in as a "waste of space" I will say that the Vietnam War showed us the many flaws in the draft. A great example is poor motivation experienced by the heavily draft augmented units of the United States Army; 101st Airborne, 1st Infantry Division and 4th Infantry Division. Those three units were the priemier frontline units of the United States Army in Vietnam and as such received large influxes of draftees.

A great example is Operation Apache Snow (otherwise known as the Battle of the A Shau Valley). For those that don't know, the Battle of the A Shau Valley saw the United States 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN; South Vietnam) go in to action against a numerically smaller North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Division. For ten (10) days the 101st and 1st ARVN tried to fight their way through and up the opposite slop of the valley and were utterly repulsed until May 20th 1969 when they FINALLY reached the opposite heights. Despite tactical air support, heavy artillery support, and numercial superiority, the American and ARVN Forces couldn't dislodge the small dug-in NVA troops. It has been hypothosized that the large number of draftees in both the American and ARVN Forces contributed to this failure to progress; most importantly the mass retreats that took place on the 10th, 11th, and 12th of May.

While I don't know exactly if that is/was the leading cause of the blood bath that ensued in the A Shau Valley, I'd be willing to bet that a volunteer Division would not have met the same setbacks. The Battle is often aptly named "Hamburger Hill" due to the terrible price the American and ARVN Forces payed to defeat the NVA, however those terrible casualties were predicated by constant retreats when pushing the objective would have meant victory. Just my 71 cents on the matter.

 

[tamarin]

It's a new age and new thinking is required. Since our major enemies seem to be states harbouring Islamic militants and since these same countries are overwhelmingly homophobic, I'd do the smart thing. I'd draft people from the gay community and put them into well trained fighting units. The thought such a squad was about to enter their town will scare the hell out of the fanatics and should make any military operation a lot easier.

 

[FiveParadox]

I hope you're joking, tamarin.

I would request a non-combat role (since I'm basically barred from combat anyway—I'm not allowed to join the Canadian Forces due to medical reasons, but I'm sure if I was needed an exception could be made for a non-combat role).

 

[Riyko]

If drafted i'd dodge it, but do they draft women? I'm not one for helping a country in a war.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Interesting question, and one I've thought about a lot at various times in my life. I'm now too old for it to matter, I'll never be drafted now, so I didn't vote in the poll. If they start drafting guys my age it means all is lost, and I might as well go off and get shot as try to do anything else, and take as many of the supposed bad guys off with me as I can.

But I have a 24-year old son who'd be prime draft material, so it's still a concern for me. If he were drafted, I would tell him the choice to go or dodge is his and his alone, and I would support whatever choice he made. I would of course try to counsel him based on my view of what he was being drafted for, but once he'd made his choice, he'd get nothing less than 100% support from his father.

That's part of what it means to be a father, in my not very humble opinion.

BUT... The question has never arisen, and as a citizen of Canada it is unlikely to ever arise for me, so it's too easy to take the high ground in the abstract. In reality, if my son were really faced with a choice like that, I would probably tell him to run, hide, don't put yourself in harm's way, for my sake if not for yours, dads aren't supposed to outlive their children, save yourself, I'll pay for passage to anyplace you want to go... He might be brave and honourable and feel a duty and etc., but I'd probably be a complete coward on his behalf.

You might notice I'm a little ambivalent here...