Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Draft breezes blowing

Friday, July 30, 1999 | 9:23 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is executive editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

THE CONTINUING economic health of our nation is almost too good to be true. Not everybody's benefiting from this situation, but most high school graduates can find a job that they like and that provides enough cash to enjoy their immediate environment. Evidently a vast majority of them believe their present situation is better than what the military has to offer.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Paul Richter reveals that, "The Air Force for this month disclosed that it will fall 2,500 recruits short of its annual goal -- for the first time in 20 years -- and said that it also expects to be short 1,401 active-duty pilots. It has 12,744. Earlier this year, the Navy said that it would fall 22,000 sailors short of a projected force of 394,000."

Richter goes on to write, "To counteract this trend, the Air Force has been reorganizing personnel into 10 'air expeditionary' units in hopes of spreading the burden of overseas duties more evenly throughout the force.

"The Navy is adding various new privileges and comforts to show that it views sailors and Marines as 'valued professionals,' in the words of Navy Secretary Richard Danzig. It is improving food and adding more shipboard television sets, weight rooms and expanded e-mail privileges. Last winter the Navy eased rules on physical fitness and excess weight to enable more sailors to avoid dismissal. Congress has been giving the services added money for pay, education and retirement. The Army, for example, has bumped up its maximum college tuition aid to $50,000 and offers enlistment bonuses that can total $19,000."

Evidently all of these new perks still aren't enough to attract enough quality recruits to meet military demands. At the same time, people with special military skills are taking their mustering-out pay and heading for better paying civilian jobs, and many complain that our new military activity around the world is taking them away from their families for uncomfortable periods of time.

More than 50 years ago when I first enlisted in the Marines, the amount of pay wasn't even considered. Fifty dollars a month along with my food, shelter and clothing was enough for me. Come to think about it, the pay was never an issue during my next two enlistments. I was single and my economic responsibilities weren't excessive. A few years later, after my mother died, the extra $50 a month received for combat duty helped my little sister in college.

Today our volunteer armed forces are loaded with married career people. They have different needs and while wanting to serve, also value time with their families. Because of rapid means for transportation they see no need for extended periods away from their spouse and children.

Today isn't like World War II, when military people packed their sea and duffel bags and went off to war with the knowledge most of them wouldn't be home until the job was done. This was more than three years for many of them lucky enough to come home alive or at least in one piece. During the wars in Korea and Vietnam few warriors were required to spend more than a year in the war zone. Even that time was often broken up with a few days of R and R to some nearby peaceful country. And Desert Storm was the shortest of all conflicts, with the actual ground war ending after a few days.

Since that conflict our nation's role as policeman and social worker for the world has continued to expand. It's rather difficult for a paratrooper to get all excited about leaving his own family, to survive on food stamps, to baby-sit for people on the other side of the world.

Enlistments aren't going to soar when Americans read story after story about military families scrounging to make ends meet. Last week an Associated Press story from Washington concluded, "Many soldiers 'can only afford food, clothing and shelter and getting to work,' said Brenda Robbins, an Army Community Services worker at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. 'Saving is almost obsolete.'

"A recent survey of 165 soldiers at Walter Reed found that 41 percent were using some form of public or private charity, according to spokesman Bill Swisher."

So guess what some of the boys and girls making policy along the Potomac are now suggesting be given serious thought? Just like they did in 1980, the use of a draft to strengthen the "all-volunteer" military forces has popped up again. You can believe it will again disappear because there aren't enough votes or guts in the Congress or the White House to dig up the system discarded in 1973.

During the Vietnam War, Americans saw draft deferments that were abused to the point that it was scandalous. Any future draft will only come during the time of dire emergency and be implemented by calling every man no matter what his education or economic status. Yes, and at the same time there will be an argument about drafting women. Today our volunteer military totals 14 percent women.

So look for the Pentagon to again try to fudge by lowering enlistment standards and watering down tough training programs needed during basic training. In the meantime, the military manpower people are probably praying for an economic recession.