Gonzales 1
David Gonzales
Instructor Macdonald
English 1010
10 December 12 November 2013
Let’s Reinstate the Draft
Are you worried about the U.S Government reinstating the draft? Are you also worried that about after joining the Army as part of a reinstated draft that you maywill not get any post service benefits for your service to your country? In Thomas E. Ricks’s New York Times article “Let’s Draft Our Kids” he tries to offer a new and different plan for the old draft system with more post service benefits for the draftees. Also in the article Ricks has a quote from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal which reads, “I think if a nation goes to war, every town, every city needs to be at risk” showing that McChrystal thinks that every person in the U.S has a stake in wining wars and in order to win wars America needs to have a full-sized Army and order to do this we will need to restate the draft. In the article Ricks claims that in order to get most Americans to reaccept the draft there would need to be many post service benefits for the draftees.
Ricks also states that Americans still want to maintain a serious military force. So because of this, America will need to reinstate the draft. IAlso Ricks n the article, Ricks states that we need to think about how we will pay for the restated draftit and also how to get people in America to accept it. Ricks goes on to say that the old draft system fell out of favor because of the events of the Vietnam War. So Ricks says that in his new plan for the draft there would be three options for conscripts some of which do not have the conscript fighting on the front lines.
This revised draft plan would include men and women who have just come out of high school which would be a change from the old draft system because the old draft system does not include women as draftees. Another change that Ricks proposes is that recruits who stay in the army for 18 months would receive low pay, but after their service they would receive free college tuition as a draft benefit. These recruits would not be deployed in war zones but instead work at the Pentagon in non-combat roles. The work that they would be doing are things like “paperwork, painting barracks, mowing lawns, driving generals around, and generally doing lower skills tasks so professional soldiers don’t have to.” However, if after the 18 months are over if the draftees want to stay in the military, they can become part of the professional force.
Others who didn’t want to serve as part of the militaryarmy could instead perform civilian national service but their service period would in turn last longer and also the pay would not be as good. The service that they would perform would be things like “teaching in low-income areas, cleaning parks, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, or aiding the elderly.” After their service they would receive some college tuition aid but they would not have the whole tuition paid for them like they would if they had stayed in service for the full 18 months.
Ricks states in the article that not everyone will accept being drafted so the revised draft will be optional. For example in the article Ricks states that the libertarians would not like his program. However if they will not join the Army then they will not be eligible to receive government help like Medicare, subsidized college loans and mortgage guarantees. Therefore under the new draft the only choice for people who would like to have government benefits would be to join the army.
In the article Ricks states that in the current political climate his proposal would not be accepted for several reasons and critics could argue “there is simply no place to put all these people.” Another argument that opponents could use is that Ricks says that his program would cost billions of dollars. Ricks says that another thing that opponents could argue is that there is no place to put all the new recruits. But Ricks says that if too many people applied then they would use a Vietnam Era system of having a lottery to pick the potential recruits.
Ricks’s counter argument is that in the end some of the civilian service programs would save the government money. He goes on to say that a soldier could deliver food to an elderly shut-in and by doing that, it might prevent that elderly person from moving to a nursing home therefore saving the taxpayers money. Another way that Ricks claims his new program could save money is by giving the government a cheap labor force. This cheap labor force would be the military recruits. Ricks recommends that the government should make the draftees available to states and cities as a cheap labor force.
Ricks also states that the best part of having a draft could make Americans think more about going to war. Ricks quotes the words of General McChrystal, “having a draft might make Americans think more carefully before going to war.” Ricks says the draft in the end could save the lives of many Americans and also it could save the American people tons of tax dollarsmoney. He also believes that having a draft could have stopped us from going to war with Iraq.
While the idea of restating the draft may be somewhat conversational and also a very ugly idea to most American teens, the upsides to Ricks’s revised draft outweigh the ideological downsides which may make some goups of teens accept being drafted. One of the benefits that Ricks’s plan would give to the draftees which would be a good idea, is paying for the draftee’s whole college tuition. Which would be an incentive for most teens whothat do not have a way to pay for college very happy about joining the military because they will now have a way to pay for college. So, Ricks’s article has some very good ideas about giving the veterans of war benefits for their time serving the country as part of the military. Also showing teens that they can get benefits for joining the army would also be a good thing because most people in that age group don’t know that there are benefits for being a veteran.
In World War II when they had the draft, one of the benefits of G.I. Bill helped to pay the cost of college for returning soldiers. After World War II my own Grandpa went to college on the G.I Bill which helped him to pay for a good education in his chosen field of engineering, but it only help to pay for 2 years of his college education. He would latter use his college education to come back to work for the government as a civil Soservant and then use the money he got from the government work to raise a family (Torres). So the idea of giving the draftees post war benefits is not an entirely new one. But what is different is the proposed revised draft would pay for the whole college tuition whereas the old draft system does not. Most people would see as this as a positive thing that would help the members of the lower class become the middle class by being able to have a chance to be better educated. This is also a change from the current veteran benefit program which has an annual cap of $17,500 on tuition (Howell). Other parts of the revised draft are somewhat similar to the current G.I. Bill that is used tofor give veterans post service benefits for their military service. An example of this is that in the current G.I. Bill veterans can still get benefits in peace time for their military service, . Bbut in order to get post service benefits, a soldier needs to be in the military for at least 90 days.
Most people today who graduate from college struggle to pay for their college loans. As most people in America know, the price of college tuition has gone up every year. Also a study on student loan statistics shows that 60% percent of Americans who go to college borrow money annually for their education (Student Loan Debt Statistics). This means that poor people cannot go to college and if they do go to college, they accrue a lot of post college debt which affects their overall standard of living later in their lifelives. This makes it so that it is hard for the poor to become part ofget into the middle class. Many Americans don’t even try to go college because they don’t have the money for it, which is a decision that often affects their lives in a negative way later in life. It also makes it harder for the poor to get a good high paying job. This is a real problem in American society because the American DDream states that anyone can make a better life for themselves if they work hard during their lives, but if the current cost of college is too high much for those in the lower class, but how are they supposed to achieve the American Dream if they cannot get the right education? This shows that the American Dream is nearly impossible to achieve because of the current cost of college. But iIf the government was is willing to pay for the whole cost of college tuition for just 18 months of military service, it would help poor people and also some in the middle class to achieve their own versions of the American Dream.
So many may see Ricks’ revised draft as a good idea that will help people who don’t have the money to pay for college who are unable to pay for a college education. Ricks’s plan would help to bring down the number of people who are trapped in college debt which would in turn cause the American economy to once again be the best in the world. Another way that Ricks’s idea is a good thing for the people of thise nation is that by having more people being able to go to college would create it could bring more back highly skilled labor in to this country some of which has been lost to China in the last 50 years. So in the end Ricks’s revised draft could be just what this country needs to become a leader in education once more and to regain its former position in the world which has been lost over the last century.
So in conclusion, the new draft plan that Ricks proposes has many good benefits for the recruits, many of which will be good for the economy of the American people. This plan would also help many college age students be able to pay for college after serving in the military for 18 months. This would be a very good thing because it would bring down the number of people who are in debt in this country. So this plan that Ricks proposes in the article may be well received by the American people after it has been in effect for several years due to the many generous benefits to the draftees. Overall the Ricks’ plan has many benefits for the American people as a whole and should implemented immediately for the good of the nation and military veterans who want to go to college for free.
Works Cited
Ricks, Thomas E. “Let’s Draft Our Kids.” The New York Times. Sulzberger, Arthur Ochs,
Jr., 9 July 2012. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.
Torres, Elias R. Personal Interview 1 Nov. 2013.
“Student Loan Debt Statistics.” American Student Assistance. N.p. n.d. Web. 7 Dec.
2013.
Howell, Terry. “VA Offers More Details on GI Bill Changes” Military.com. n.p. 06 Jan.
2011. Web. 7 Dec. 2013