<p>“I would not want to have anyone by my side in combat who hadn’t volunteered for duty.”</p>
<p>There might be some Civil War, Korean War, and WW2 vets who would disagree with you. All three of those wars were fought with a HUGE number of men who were conscripted into service:</p>
<p>Some numbers—</p>
<p>WWI: (Sept. 1917-Nov. 1918) 2,810,296 draftees
WWII: (Nov. 1940-Oct. 1946) 10,110,104 draftees
Korea: (June 1950-June 1953) 1,529,539 draftees
Vietnam: (Aug 1964- Feb 1973) 1,857,304 draftees</p>
<p>I was unable to find a number for the civil war, but I remember my US History–Lincoln called for a conscription which resulted in rioting in several northern cities. There were thousands conscripted in the north to fight to preserve the Union. It would be nice if everyone was a volunteer, but unless we are only going to wage war on a small scale, its just not practical when it comes time to take and occupy territory.</p>
<p>I would submit that none of these wars could have been successfully prosecuted without a draft.</p>
<p>Look at WW2—probably the one war most supported by the general population since the Civil War, yet we still needed to draft over 10 million men to fight it. I think if you did some research, you would find a significant number of highly decorated veterans from all of these wars were drafted into the service.</p>