35 Years Ago...

[walkin2e]

This date, Nov 22, 1971, I entered the US Army. I was sworn in at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Jacksonville, Florida, and took a Greyhound bus to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I took both Basic Training and Advanced Training (Personnel Specialist 71H20) there. I ate Thanksgiving dinner in the Army mess hall...and it was good! Here are some of my thoughts about wanting to reinstate the draft:

During the Vietnam "conflict", my draft number was 39. Coming from a family of patriots (My dad, uncles WW !!, others Civil War and Revolutionary), I was willing but knew my position would be better if I volunteered...so I did. I never had to go to Vietnam, but I ended up serving on active duty for 16 years and retired from the Reserves with over 21 years.

I was a personnel officer, and was there when the draft was ended...and when the "all volunteer" Army started. From my perspective, the volunteer Army produced more lower income, and lower educated soldiers. There were four categories of soldiers (based on test scores)..Cat I, II, III, and IV..Cat I was the soldiers with the highest IQ's and Cat IV's were at the lower end of the spectrum...Wasn't much of problem except that the Army was always short of those soldiers who Military Occupational Specialties were highly technical, and so required a fairly intelligent individual to complete the training requirements. As a personnel management officer, I was always being bombarded by commanders who were short soldiers in these categories.

During the period of time I served with draftees, we had a wide variety of soldiers from all walks of life...It was not uncommon to have college graduates performing duties as clerks, and infantryman. Despite the fact they were drafted, they had good attitudes and wanted to perform to the best of their ability (sure, they were a few troublemakers, but most were weeded out during basic or advanced training). Can't say much about today's Army except I know technology is more advanced.

We had no trouble getting volunteers, as the economy was bad, but we did have trouble getting Cat I and Cat II soldiers. Also during this time, mid seventies through mid eighties, there was no major conflicts going on. We also had drug problems, so the Army changed the rules...I was over in Hawaii with a division, and we were discharging over 100 soldiers a month because they failed urine tests for marijuana...Course we had plenty of volunteers to replace them. Then the Army changed the weight and height rules, so we had to weigh in every month. If you were just a few pounds overweight, you could be discharged. I saw the Army lose many good soldiers over this policy. I recall having to discharge a Staff Sergeant who was a cook, and a good one. He had served two tours in Vietnam, but he was about 10 pounds overweight and could not lose the pounds. We said good bye to him.

Before the draft is reinstated, Army recruitment and retention policies should be reviewed...

The draft does produce quantity but it also produces quality...Why shouldn't a young man have to serve his country? Women should not be drafted.

Irvin L. Rozier, Captain (Ret) US Army Reserves, proudly served as a Private, Staff Sergeant, Chief Warrant Officer, and Captain aka walkin2e

 

[rppearso]

I agree there should be a draft as well. My only issue would be with putting people in positions they are not capable of. Like putting a basket case like myself into infantry would definatly get someone or myself killed when I freaked out and did something crazy. They have to weight someones ability and not just fill people in becasue they are short in a particular area. Another thing is people are not weeded out in basic anymore unless either you cant shoot or cant pass PT, I was a total emotional wreck the whole time through and did not know up from down, I passed and I shouldent have. BTW I am a cat 2 (one or 2 pts away from cat 1) with an engineering degree and I almost have my PE so if I were drafted I would likely go into the army corp of engineers as an officer. However I do not think a draft will ever happen because of the public outcry and every representitive and senator that supported it would be on the chopping block in the next elections. I also think if they start a draft it should not be all the way to the age of 42 (that was the suggested age for the draft proposed by one of the democrates recently), I know they are recruiting that old but I should not have to wait until I am 42 to be out of chopping block range to be drafted.

 

[rppearso]

Another thing, if they want cat 1 and cat 2 they better start to treat intellegant people intellegantly, my performance is going to go way down by my own choosing if im mixed in with drill sgts who act like they just came out of a mental ward, I understand you have to wake up and PT and all that but what I went through was way over the top. With what I went through I will never support this nations military untill some drastic changes are made. They need to have completely seperate tracks for thoes in certian fields that are never mixed with drill sgts or TAC's (the OCS equivalant to a drill sgt)