Uncle Sam Wants Who?

Congress edgily considers reviving some form of the draft

During the late stages of the Viet Nam War, military conscription was so despised by so many Americans that it spawned a new class of nonviolent criminals: young men who tore up draft cards or fled to Canada or Sweden to avoid induction. Since then, the U.S. has shifted to an all-volunteer force, and no one has been called up since 1972. But last week Congress reluctantly was again considering reinstating the draft, or at least some of its preliminary steps.

The reason is simply that voluntary enlistments are not supplying the necessary numbers of servicemen and reservists. Despite good pay ($419 a month minimum for a private) and even enlistment bonuses ($1,000 to $3,000), recruiting drives fell 10% short of meeting their goals in the last quarter of 1978. Far more worrisome, the Army's reserves are shockingly below strength. The Army's Individual Ready Reserve, composed of men who have completed their active duty but are subject to quick call-up, is supposed to number 700,000, but actually has fewer than 200,000. That shortage could be critical. The IRR would supply replacements for soldiers killed or wounded in the early weeks of war, and, as the Arab-Israeli clash in 1973 proved, modern weapons can cause heavy casualties at a fearsome rate.

The draft machinery is so rusty that the Pentagon no longer even knows how many eligible men are in the prime 18-to-26 age group, or where they reside. Registering, classifying and sending the first draftee to basic training would take 110 days, and by that time the Soviets might have scored major victories in a European ground war.

After defending the all-volunteer force for years, the admirals and the generals are now admitting that they are worried about recruiting. "The trend is unmistakably down," says General Louis H. Wilson, Marine commandant. But not even the Pentagon wants to crank up the old draft again. General David C. Jones, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admits that "there were tremendous inequities in the previous Selective Service." The service chiefs, however, want registration revived and the draft machinery oiled up. Going one big step further, General Bernard W. Rogers, the Army's Chief of Staff, favors calling up about 75,000 to 100,000 young men a year, keeping them on active service for several months, and then assigning them to the IRR for six years.

Any peacetime revival of the draft is bitterly opposed as an infringement of freedom by such groups as the antiwar Friends Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union. Nonetheless, there is a growing feeling on Capitol Hill that the all-volunteer force is a failure, as long argued by Senator John C. Stennis, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Bills before Congress range from requiring only registration to reinstituting the old-fashioned draft. There is even talk of making women register. One other proposal would set up a "national service" program that would allow draftees to go into uniform or work at useful civilian jobs.

Despite the serious manpower shortage, Congress is in no mood to vote for a draft, not in peacetime, not with an election coming up. The most that Congress can probably be persuaded to accept this session is some form of registration.

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