Military Officials: Women Should Register for Draft — Just Like Men

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41

While aircraft played a part, a larger part was the US military personnel management practices which enabled them to rapidly build up a pool of good pilots and with the practice of quickly rotating proficient combat pilots back to the states to serve as instructor pilots…further improved the average quality of the US military pilots in the middle-latter parts of the war.

In contrast, the best German/Japanese pilots were kept in the front lines for far longer periods and not rotated back to train a larger pools of reasonably good pilots. As a result, the overall quality of the average Luftwaffe/Japanese combat pilots dropped sharply as the war went on whereas the overall quality of the average US/Allied pilots markedly improved.

A marked contrast to the beginning of the war when Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had a large pool of well-trained and battle-experienced pilots due to WWI and/or involvements in various wars/conflicts in the '30s like the Fascist intervention on Franco’s behalf in Spain or Imperial Japan’s imperial invasions/attacks in NE Asia and that Soviet-Japanese war border war(Nomohan and Changkufeng) in the mid-late '30s.

Also, keep in mind the Germans had some planes which were arguably better then the best US aircraft…like the ME-262. However, poor long-term planning from the '30s and micromanagement from Nazi bigwigs including Hitler meant those planes weren’t ready in sufficient numbers early enough when their introduction could have made a difference. That and by '44, the Luftwaffe was already suffering a death spiral due to the horrendous attrition of its most experienced combat pilots and the lack of equivalently proficient pilots to replace them.

42

If you are a citizen of the US, you should register for the draft. Last I heard, women were citizens too :wink:

43

There’s some similarities to this and how the first military draft in US history was perceived in the Civil War years once volunteers were insufficient to meet the needs of armies on both sides.

The Confederacy instituted a draft in 1862 which had exemptions which enabled the well-off to be exempted from the draft:

http://cwnc.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/651

Similarly, the Union institution of the draft in 1863 and the exemption for draftees who could pay someone to go in their place or simply pay a then princely sum of $300 was a factor in seething outrage among many poor/working class young men which culminated in the 1863 draft riots in NYC.

Also, if someone from the upper-classes of both sides did opt to serve in the armies of both sides, they’d strongly opt to do so as commissioned officers as the social conventions of the time were such few upper-class folks would have been inclined to join as enlisted soldiers.

44

I just find it kind of offensive that the military brass have always been against women in combat in every way, fighting their efforts tooth and nail. And the minute that a very few women have fought their way into their midst, they suddenly are all for having them register. Please, they still don’t want women in combat, they are just trying to make us uncomfortable.

45

Heh.

I actually made it a point to register myself well before I turned 18 and managed to do so despite “What’s the rush” comments.

Never got my Selective Service card despite the fact I called them multiple times(they didn’t have email/website back then) with them confirming each time I was registered and good to go on their end.

Never any issues with the Federal FA portion of my FA/scholarship package.

46

women should have been registering for years…

  1. Previously, a small section of military jobs were not open to women. However, the VAST MAJORITY of military jobs are not "combat" jobs, and they are extremely important. There are many locations where civilians and military work side by side, and basically the only difference is that the civilians don't have to pass a PT test. It is 2016. Just because you can't do 5 million pull-ups doesn't mean you can't contribute to an effort when your country needs you.
  2. The above jobs are now open to women.

movemetoo: to play devil’s advocate, what is a woman bringing to a front line unit that a man cannot bring?

Are there any risks? Perhaps if female POWs from the front lines get raped at significantly higher percentage than their male counterparts?

I fully support opening up all the jobs, as long as the standards should not drop at all. We know women already have lower PT standards than the men. The women in these groups must meet the same requirements, and the requirements CANNOT be lowered.

47

It is also disappointing to me that some people in this thread don’t think that if absolutely necessary, the country can should be able to call on its citizens to defend the country, while simultaneously sitting here and enjoying all the perks.

48

No, what is being pointed out is that the chance of the US military needing or wanting conscript servicemembers who can be provided by the current Selective Service System (which could take as long as 193 days) is vanishingly tiny (and then a conscript would spend 70 days in basic training plus more time in whatever other training is needed before becoming useful in military service). Can you imagine the US getting into a war lasting at least that long (before victory, defeat, or political backlash) and needing so many entry-level servicemembers that conscription would be needed?

49

Another thing to keep in mind is that the idea of a military draft being an accepted part of one’s duties as a citizen beyond the much less formalized state militia systems of the colonial/post-US Revolution period is a relatively recent one in US history.

Attempts to implement a national draft before the Civil War such as during the War of 1812 were denounced by many Americans as an example of impositional tyrannical overreach by the government. One good example of this was this speech by Congressman Daniel Webster:

http://www.constitution.org/dwebster/conscription.htm

Also, once the national draft was imposed on both sides of the Civil War(1862 for the Confederacy*, 1863 for the Union), there were many examples of draft evasion/resistance such as families/towns hiding draft eligible citizens and massive desertions(especially high on the Confederate side in the last two years of the war), draft-aged males going west, and even mass violence such as the multi-day NYC draft riots of 1863 which required a large military force with support of naval gunfire to put down.

After the Civil War, a national draft wasn’t implemented again until WWI. And the draft in WWI was challenged by draft resistors and those who agreed with Daniel Webster’s view of the national draft being contrary to the freedom and liberty granted by the Constitution against such impositions upon individual liberties.

  • Many southerners of this period rejected this using the same "States Rights" arguments used to justify the Confederate States' secession from the Union. This was taken to such extremes that state governors such as Georgia's Joseph E. Brown denounced Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his national government for implementing the 1862 draft and attempted to prevent the Confederate Army from taking Georgia troops to fight outside the state.
50

As a man, I was conscripted into a combat military unit, not my preferred choice of a way to spend 2 years. Usually, there is no shortage of people to carry out non-combat roles, you don’t need selective service registration for that. If I was American, and I had a daughter who would be subjected to a draft leading to involuntary assignment to a combat role, we would both be leaving the country pretty darn quick. There is no equality in the general suitability of men and women to get killed or injured or captured in combat.

51

I am a female who is of draft age. I have no issues with registering with the selective service system, particularly now that women are allowed to take on virtually every position out there. I have benefited from this country just as much as my brothers and ought to be required to defend it, should such a grave situation arise.

52

Unfortunately, yes I can.

Experience and idealism. Hopefully we will never need to find out how feasible a draft would be now. It is a great concern that so many of our young draft-age people are so out of shape, but that’s a whole nother topic.

53

We’re not talking here about an actual draft, but about the fairness of the law which only requires males 18 and older to register for selective service. In a society based on fairness and equality of the sexes, the only fair way for Selective Service to work is to have both sexes register. The usefulness of conscription is another story.

54

On women in combat: There were many examples in recent history like from the resistance movements in Nazi Occupied France or Japanese occupied China, Israeli armed forces during the 1948 war for Israeli Statehood/First Arab-Israeli war, Viet Minh/Cong guerillas against French/US/South Vietnamese forces, and the Sino-Vietnamese War in the '80s.

Regarding the last, I read of an account where a large regular PLA unit was ambushed at night and practically captured wholesale by a much smaller all-women Vietnamese militia unit. Entire war which started out as Deng Xiaoping’s effort to “teach the Vietnamese a lesson” turned out to be such an embarrassment that public discussion of this conflict has been considered taboo in Mainland China.

55

@cobrat:
The ME262 was their jet fighter, and it was developed late, but Germany with its aircraft faced the same problem all first makers do, that their aircraft was outmatched (same with the Japanese with the Zero), the Spitfire and Hurricane, because of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine, could climb faster and higher than the ME109 (which was not really a pure fighter), and they could outfly the plane. What is interesting is that the British in the Battle of Britain had 19 year old kids up their flying against the luftwaffe, whose pilots were experienced (thank you, Francisco Franco, who should have been captured at the end of WWII and shot), and they accounted for a lot of kills of German pilots (plus having radar helped them, obviously).

“There is no equality in the general suitability of men and women to get killed or injured or captured in combat.”

I think that one has been blown out of the water, women have been de facto serving in combat for a long time, they just were getting no credit for it. In garden spots like Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no such thing as a combat or non combat position, not when, for example, a woman ferrying troops in a chopper or running supplies or whatnot can come under fire and be killed, or when that safe base can be hit by RPG’s and who the heck knows what else, there is no distinction. To add to some of Cobrat’s example, Russian women fought in combat in WWII against the Germans, and Russia had a lot of female fighter pilots who terrorized the Luftwaffe (Russian friend of mine said “Of course, any Russian husband could tell you that, about Russian women” lol).

The other part of that is that in a draft, they are drafting for combat and non combat positions. In WWII a lot of people who were drafted served stateside, served in supply outfits, medical outfits and so forth, and I hate to tell you, but women were near the front lines in WWII at field hospitals and other medical facilities, and they got wounded and killed (but thanks to the wonderful state of things, they were not considered combat casualties, so their families didn’t get the full death benefits and they didn’t get combat pay).

Women have proven themselves in many roles, and when you talk about equality, it is much like,to paraphrase Goldwater (talking about gays serving, another myth blown to kingdom come) said, “they can take a bullet as well as anyone else”.

I agree that the reality is a draft is very unlikely, the kind of large scale wars that require a draft are not likely to happen again, warfare is changing, it is now becoming a war of black ops and special forces, not large scale movements of divisions and armies. Not to mention that the reality of conventional warfare has hit home, if you look at both Iraq and Afghanistan, it is very hard to come to the conclusion that conventional warfare can solve much, and the stomach for such a war would be very likely to be nil.

I hope to hell we never see another draft, and I am not of the school that serving in the military is necessarily a great thing for people (it is for some, not for others), but if we are going to keep reserves in the form of selective service, then it should be all citizens, and if we need a draft, then you put people where they can be most effective, not based on gendeer.

56

I disagree with your characterization of the comments in this thread regarding whether or not other posters are saying that there should be no draft under any circumstances.

I agree that right now the likelihood of needed a draft is extremely small.

The likelihood of someone flying planes into our skyscrapers was also extremely small. And is still extremely small. But that action changed the world and has defined an entire generation (15 years now) of foreign affairs.

57

Currently, only about a quarter of young adults are considered eligible to voluntarily serve in the US military.
http://cdn.missionreadiness.org/NATEE1109.pdf

If we actually believe that there is a non-trivial chance of military need for conscript servicemembers, and want to be ready for military conscription, then we certainly need something more robust than the current Selective Service System, in order to deliver the needed recruits for military service in less time than 193 days plus 70 days of basic training. I.e. if we want ready reserve forces, then conscript everyone for basic training, followed by short yearly refresher training while of conscription age. Of course, in that case, we also need to figure out what to do about the three quarters of young adults currently considered ineligible for voluntary military service – should the military lower its standards, or leave draft dodging loopholes that some may try to use?

58

Those are current standards for an all-volunteer force. If we needed the bodies, then the standards can be lowered. I would think that many of the men coming out of the depression era when the draft was started in September 1940 were also not in shape for military service. The military has a way to shape people up, unless the kids have a disqualifying medical condition.

59

Incidentally, one factor for the institution of the free school breakfast/lunch programs, especially for lower income families WAS due to the fact that ~25% of draftee-aged men called up for service during WWII were found to be unfit for military service(4-F-ed) mostly due to the effects of childhood malnutrition incurred during the Great Depression years.

This was probably one of the factors in why during WWII, the US had to call up more draftees aged 26+ which factored into the often cited figure of the average age of WWII draftees being 26 as opposed to 19 during the Vietnam War.

60

soccerguy315 wrote:
It is also disappointing to me that some people in this thread don’t think that if absolutely necessary, the country can should be able to call on its citizens to defend the country, while simultaneously sitting here and enjoying all the perks.

I believe Viet Nam changed people’s thinking. Many felt our country called on our sons and brothers, but it wasn’t really in defense of our country. I think that war changed the attitude towards the draft. WWII had almost a 40% volunteer force because the war had wide support of our citizenry.

It might be semantics, but 18 year olds don’t so much as register for the draft as they are registered. A notification shows up in the mail around their eighteenth birthday and I don’t recall that there was any action required of them. It was just done.