In Denigrating "Draftees,"
Rumsfeld Denies History

By Bill Finucane

It was an ingenuous remark, made by an increasingly prominent cabinet level officer in the current Bush Administration. It was even an understandable comment. Until you stopped and thought about it.

Congress was talking about reinstating the American draft and a reporter asked United States Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld what he thought of the idea. He quickly made it clear he didn’t think much of citizen soldiers arriving in the ranks by any resumption of the draft, and he pointed to the apparent shortcomings of earlier periods, when the nation had a regular draft.

Part of his answer was this bon mot, "And what was left (after draft exemptions) was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time: Because of the churning that took place, it took an enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and they were gone."

His point, of course, was that draftees required a great deal of effort to train, but that after the investment was made their enlistments would expire and they would return to civilian life. Yet for a Defense Secretary whose increasingly popular persona embodies a no-nonsense, direct approach that, whether posed or not, accurately reflects a substantial element of the American character, the remarks were woefully indicative of current politics trumping history. Mr. Rumsfeld surely is old enough to know better from personal experience if not intellectual understanding, though he certainly seems smart enough, and therefore it seems fair to conclude his disdain for the draft is rooted in GOP politics, not facts or history.

Not surprisingly, a letter signed by Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and Representative Lane A. Evans of Illinois soon followed the publication of Secretary Rumsfeld’s remarks.

"We are shocked, frankly, that you were apparently willing to dismiss the value

of the service of millions of Americans, tens of thousands of whom gave their lives for their country in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam," stated the senators.

But Rumsfeld was not speaking out of ignorance of the draft system. He spent just three years in the United States Navy. Of course Rumsfeld’s 36 months may have seemed as though he was just learning his navy role when he mustered out, and therefore the entire process seemed impractical to him. Maybe it was, especially from a fighter’s point of view.

But from the point of view of a citizen of the world’s most powerful nation, the draft was far more complex. When there was a draft, the average citizen had to participate, had to risk injury or death (in war and sometimes in peacetime), but that participation, that knowledge, led to a greater understanding of what war was about and, certainly, the citizen soldier’s viewpoint carried more weight because of it.

Such veterans brought credibility to the national debates of years past, whether they spoke out against a policy or a conflict or supported it; in all such dialogue, the draftee was invaluable. The draftee, whether an enlisted man or an officer, was the leavening in the mixture that throughout its history made this country’s military reflect the values as well as the strengths of America.

Someone like Kerry, for example, a Navy man himself, could come back to Congress and tell the Senators and Represenatives about Vietnam, where he had killed Vietcong. He was believable because he was just a regular guy. He was not, in other words, a career soldier.

Career soldiers, obviously, do get plenty of training and stay in the service long enough to use it often and, therefore, well. The same can be said of good guns, worthy aircraft, seaworthy ships and satellites. All those elements go into fighting wars. In every war these are essential things; well trained and seasoned soldiers, using good equipment.

But if the career soldier is to be considered primarily a weapon, there is an implication that such professionals are not particularly worried about whether a given war is just or right. Career soldiers aren’t supposed to worry over much about that, they are simply supposed to do their duty, their job, as ordered.

Certainly, in a professional army, there are soldiers who take such a simple, unquestioning credo to heart, but clearly even in the America’s volunteer army, 30 plus years after Richard Nixon ended the draft, there are many who obviously do care what it is they are fighting for or about. This is something that should be prized, even though some military and political leaders would prefer professional soldiers who take orders without even the quietest thought or reflection.

It is precisely this dichotomy that should remain at the heart of any debate or discussion about the merits of a draft versus a professional standing army in a democracy.

The professional soldier who asks why an action is being taken is fulfilling his role as a citizen, yet may easily run afoul of his superiors and his peers who have assumed the simple credo that it is their job to do whatever is asked by the authorities above them. In contrast, virtually all drafted soldiers are and should be concerned about such issues, and as history has shown, they are often unafraid of making their individual views as citizens known. They are citizens first, soldiers a distant second.

All Americans, of course, are rights bearing citizens whose duty it is to decide if they agree with the nation’s policies or not, including whether a given conflict or war is right and just. That is a sacred American right. But wearing that mantle of citizenship publicly and acting upon it is much, much easier for a drafted soldier than it is for a professional soldier. And that is what makes an American draftee a tough nut to train; he will want to know why we are fighting Saddam Hussein or any other declared enemy.

Rumsfeld apparently does not want this problem.