There is no draft. LOOK at the numbers for 5 seconds and you'll figure it out. Yes, they turned me down personally when I showed up. NG and AF were always more popular during war time. There still won't be a draft, I can almost guarentee it. I've seen the AF at work for 20 years, either through my dad or my husband, and it just ain't going to happen. All of the services have similar enlistment standards. In order to draft, they'd either have to drop a lot of these, or they wouldn't be able to draft nearly enough people to be effective. The second they drop the standards, they'd have volunteers ready to go.
http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/wars/a/draft.htm"First and foremost, one must understand that the President does not have the authority to re-institute the draft...
...Both bills would require every single male and female between the ages of 18 and 26 to serve two years in the military (or community service). Hollings version has just 13 co-sponsors, and Rangel's bill has no support at all. Folks, these bills have ZERO chances of passing. More about this idiocy, later...
...Military Size and Needs. By law, each year Congress sets the maximum size of the active duty and reserve forces. They do this by passing the Military Authorization Act and Military Appropriations Act. Each year, Congress has the option to increase the authorized size of the military -- and they have chosen not to do so (exception -- last year -- in 2003 -- Congress authorized the Army to TEMPORARILY increase in size by 20,000 -- a drop in the bucket. This temporary increase in size is to help the Army through a planned reorganization, not because Congress wants to have a larger Army)...
...Various newspaper and magazine articles make it appear that the military is having problems attracting recruits and retaining members. Nothing could be further from the truth. They interview a few soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, who state they are getting out, and use that as "proof" that the services are having problems with recruiting and retention. The truth of the matter is that all of the active duty services have made their recruiting and retention goals this year, and for the past eight straight years. The first-term re-enlistment rate is about 50 percent, and for those re-enlisting for third and fourth terms is about 80 to 85 percent (and that's exactly where the services want those rates to be -- any higher would stagnate promotions)...
...
Folks, right now, we are turning away volunteers for active duty in droves. With the current active duty enlistment and re-enlistment rates, Congress could triple the size of our active duty military, and a draft would still not be necessary. Things that wouldn't cause an "eye-blink" in the past, today require waivers to qualify, and -- as long as recruiting is going well, waiver approval is getting harder and harder to get...
...A draft is a good way to fight wars of 50 years ago. It is a lousy way to fight wars today. Today's military members are highly trained professionals. The days of giving a couple month's of training on firing a rifle and tossing a grenade, then sending men off to combat are long, long gone. In today's military, even the basic infantry is "high tech." You don't train someone to operate and maintain highly sophisticated military equipment overnight. It takes a minimum of 18 months to 2 years to turn out a trained Soldier, Airman, Sailor, or Marine. It takes even longer than that for many military specialties...
...According to the Selective Service, if a draft were implemented today, it would take 193 days for the first inductee to report in. After that, it would take another 12 to 18 months to train them and form them into new combat units. In short, if we instituted a draft today, inductees would not be effective until about two years from now (at which time, their two year service commitment would be over)...
...For the sake of simpler mathematics, we'll assume that all 22 million "draftees" are serving in the grade of E-1 (the lowest enlisted grade). They won't be, of course, but it makes the math easier. An E-1 in today's military starts off with a base pay of $1193.40 per month. $1193.40 multiplied by 22 million comes to $26,254,800,000. That's a payroll of 26 BILLION dollars per month, just in the basic pay. Multiply that by 12, and it's a yearly payroll of $315,057,600,000 (315 BILLION dollars!)..."
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