Stars & Stripes letter: Generals did the right thing/Army needs the draft

[lebkuchen]

Generals did the right thing

...The officers who took a stand on the Iraq policies after retiring from active duty were rising stars. One of them had been referred to (while I was on the faculty at the Army War College) as a top candidate to be Army chief of staff someday. These courageous officers gave up outstanding careers because they felt that someone needed to take a stand against the current policies. An active-duty soldier could not do so by law.

These men had the moral courage to give up bright careers to expose some ugly truths. These few generals are the ones with enough guts to give up their profession to do the right thing.

I am positive that no soldiers in the 1st Infantry Division would accuse retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste of putting his career before their welfare. We should be thanking these men for choosing the harder right instead of the easier wrong and hoping our civilian leaders listen to them.

Army needs the draft

...I have already been deployed twice to Iraq since the war began. Due to deployments and training time, I have spent a total of 14 months at home with my daughter, who will be 4 years old when I redeploy. Is that what our secretary of defense considers “fair, predictable and sustainable”?

When our higher leadership was looking at the war schedule and realizing that it wasn’t possible to keep up, it should have called for a draft. The only reason it hasn’t already is because, like this war itself, it is an unpopular decision for the civilians of the United States.

The standard of making Iraq a “stable and secure environment” on the backs of soldiers and their families will lead to a downward spiral of the military service.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=45779