Another pro-draft reader from the inbox:

We need national service. My father, who flew 34 harrowing (by definition) missions in the ball turret of a B-17, was virulently opposed to the Vietnam War and told my brother and me that he would not let us serve. As it turned out, I was just young enough to have missed draft registration, so it never became an issue. But some years later, as Afghanistan was heating up, I sat in on a debate about military policy at my typically-liberal liberal arts college. The geology professor, of all people, made the simple and unarguable point that the military exists to defend the nation, not to be a social welfare or jobs program. When we allow a disenfranchised underclass to become cannon fodder so that the rest of us won’t have to, we are far too likely to become adventurous.

But is there much truth to such claims that an all-volunteer military disproportionately draws from the least privileged Americans? Not really, according to a 2011 report from the Congressional Budget Office:

The report says that while 91% of last year's recruits were high school graduates, only 80% of U.S. residents aged 18 to 24 have attained that level of education. And high school graduates, the military says, make better soldiers than dropouts. ... Critics [such as Korean War veteran and Congressman Charles Rangel] have claimed that minorities are over-represented in the all-volunteer military because they have fewer options in the civilian world. The CBO disputes that, saying that "members of the armed forces are racially and ethnically diverse." African Americans accounted for 13% of active-duty recruits in 2005, just under their 14% share of 17-to-49-year-olds in the overall U.S. population. And minorities are not being used as cannon fodder. "Data on fatalities indicate that minorities are not being killed [in Iraq and Afghanistan] at greater rates than their representation in the force," the study says.

Commenter hank_the_engineer thinks the draft would in fact increase racial and socioeconomic disparities:

I understand the appeal of conscription as a form of social engineering. And I shared Epstein’s view, until I joined the Army. Even in the easy days of the late 1980s, I would not have wanted to serve with a bunch of disgruntled conscripts. Besides being bad for the Army, conscription might even backfire as a social program. During Vietnam, the rich and influential figured out how to game the system, and it seems likely that they would game the system again today, grabbing the easy jobs for their kids. In fact, that perversion of the selective service system was one of the reasons for ending the draft.

James Blair is on the same page:

Even if the draft process itself were fair (which it never is), the politics and the privilege issues continue into military service. Even if the rich get drafted, they will get directed into roles where they aren’t at risk. Al Gore, for example, went to Vietnam, but of course when he got there it was decided that he should be a journalist.

Alex Kent, on the other hand, supports the draft because “young Americans and their parents might feel more impelled to learn about U.S. policy because they would have more of a stake in the country's direction.” An emailer is more specific:

Had the Bush administration activated the draft in 2002 when it became clear that we could not achieve our goals in Afghanistan if we also invaded Iraq with the all-volunteer force, the American people and their Congressional representatives would have asked a lot more questions about the necessity of the Iraq war and avoided the “chickenhawk nation” Fallows writes about.

Xenophon thinks a draft could bridge the partisan divide:

It would reinforce the idea that citizens of the U.S first, and then cultural identity second. The fragmentation of the political scene that we see today is fundamentally an effect of our society being sorted away from this idea, such as identifying as Republican or Democrat first, which leads to a bizarre sort of tribalism.

Another pro-draft argument comes from an emailer who spent 26 years in the Air Force:

The entire concept of war has gotten totally out of whack. If there is such a threat that our country must truly go to war, then the entire population must be personally involved. There must be a draft. I would even consider a rating one step higher than 1A that would be applied to the offspring of members of Congress. If this concept is not acceptable, then we simply should not go to war.

Douglas Dea doesn’t go that far:

Sure, there is a part of me that wants to see the sons and daughters of Congressmen, party heads and CEOs donning uniforms and marching through Baghdad. If these guys are so eager for war, let them put their own flesh and blood on the line. But really, we shouldn't force them to; that’s just not right, despite how sweet and satisfying it may be. Frankly, it is immoral and un-American to force people into spending years of their lives doing something they don't want to do, and something that is also dangerous and potentially morally fraught. (Do you really want to force strongly religious people who are against killing to go out and kill? How many Amish and Mennonites do you want patrolling the streets of Kabul?) There must be, and are, other ways to serve. How about drafting people to serve as park rangers or infrastructure repairmen? Or volunteering for the Peace Corps?

Another advocate of non-military national service is an Atlantic emailer and veteran:

I grew up in one of the poorest places in America, on an Indian reservation in the West. Military service is central to the identity of the place and the people who live there. Most of the strong male role models of my upbringing, from my pastor to many of my teachers, were veterans. I graduated from high school in May of 2001 with a small class of 87 people, and of those 87 people, 8 joined the service, about 9% in total. A draft isn't a possibility—the legacies of the post-Vietnam army saw to that—and the professionalization of the military has created a cadre of NCOs and officers who are better trained than their Vietnam Era counterparts. But perhaps a vision of national service broadly conceived is something that we should be talking about as a nation. Requiring two to four years of voluntary service in multiple capacities, whether military or civilian, and in return guaranteeing a modicum of veterans benefits for the nation's youth would go a long way towards opening up the avenues of opportunity to the nation's disadvantaged.

One more emailer adds:

I feel that draftees should be made to spend a portion of their service rotating through the VA hospitals and clinics around the nation. Doing so will bring these young members of society face to face with the consequences of policy mistakes and hopefully make a vivid enough impression that as they move into positions of power makes them more mindful of the consequences of getting involved in wars without clearly defined objectives.

But Harry McNicholas warns that national service could attract exploitation:

You cannot expect a government to form some youth program without politics being involved. It’s like thinking a religious youth program will not involve religion. I have never heard of anyone being forced to serve a charity. You cannot force people to be better people.

Lorenzo proposes another kind of national sacrifice:

If there was a national tax that automatically went into effect upon declaration of war, the American people will be able to decide if they really want to pay for it.

But disqusplaya shakes his head:

I pay my taxes. It's MORE than enough. And dedicating two years of my short life to some nebulous concept like "The Government" is a terrible terrible idea, borne of fascist thinking. The government serves us, not the other way around.

Your thoughts? Email hello@theatlantic.com and I’ll update the post with your best points. Update from a reader:

As a four-year veteran (enlisted) of the USAF—an all-volunteer force—during the Vietnam War, I'd like to add a perspective I didn't see mentioned in your article: A lot of today's military jobs are technical, and it takes a lot of time and money to train people to do them. A draft implies a relatively short period of service, hence rapid turnover and loss of trained personnel, and the resultant need to continually retrain new people for the same jobs. Aside from the greater cost versus that of a volunteer military, this will also reduce the overall training level.

From another reader via email:

Thanks for the discussion on the draft. It reminded me of an exchange between Milton Friedman and General Westmoreland. The general wanted the draft because he didn't want an army of mercenaries. Friedman of course opposed the draft and asked if the general would prefer an army of slaves. It got a bit heated from there [starting at the 1:52 mark]: I'm usually somewhat libertarian but I think we should re-introduce the draft. (I actually tried to sign up for the military myself after September 11 but was turned down for various reasons. ) As Jim Fallows has written, we have this strange relationship with the military: unfamiliarity combined with hagiography. That's very dangerous: Rome's awe of the military combined with its contempt for the Senate was what let Caesar take that step across the Rubicon that eventually led to Rome's fall. An army is a necessary evil, and the left sometimes forgets the “necessary” part just as the right forgets the “evil” part. It's important to remember both pieces; we can't get rid of either piece completely, but the draft is the best way to curb both effectively.

Another email:

What frustrated me from reading the numerous debate points is that, unless I missed something, no one acknowledged that the U.S. does have a draft. It's the immensely unfair version of a draft called the “backdoor draft.” As I discussed in my fairly recent Justice Policy Journal article, “Home Free: Combatting Veteran Prosecution and Incarceration,” the backdoor draft is comprised of “stop loss” and the repeated combat-zone deployments of active duty, reserve, and national guard personnel. Along with the nation's decision not to contemporaneously pay for the war with a surtax, the nation's reliance on the backdoor draft has enabled the U.S. to maintain a perpetual state of war since the post-9/11 authorizations for use of military force.

One more email—and a great sentiment to end on:

As civilians, we can do a lot for returning veterans. If there are vets in your area, I encourage you to find out what they need. To give one example, I've been tutoring an Afghanistan vet in pre-med subjects for a few years. We belong to the same rowing club, and we meet there once or twice a week at 5:30am to review math and physics. This kind of volunteering also can bridge the culture gap: I'm a preppy Jewish guy from a wealthy Boston suburb, while the vet I tutor is Pentecostal (I think) and hails from poor rural Florida. It's a small thing, but if many people do small things, it can make a big difference.

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