Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Rangel rankles Rumsfeld

Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2003 | 8:25 a.m.

WOW! THE RUMSFELD PENTAGON really got excited over the suggestion it's time to start up the military draft. As was pointed out in one of my earlier columns, this suggestion by New York Democrat Rep. Charles B. Rangel isn't going anyplace. The same idea was brought up and killed almost immediately during the Gulf War.

Rangel, a combat veteran wounded in Korea, sees a need to return "to the tradition of the citizen soldiers." This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last time, this idea has come up during times of conflict. It just won't fly at this time because of the success of our present volunteer military forces. Maybe it will become necessary at a later date, but right now added numbers of untrained military people isn't needed nor is it acceptable to lawmakers or voters.

After writing my ideas in a column I was amazed to see the Pentagon public relations artillery released on Rangel's suggestion. The boss of the big building on the Potomac had a press conference and released an 11-page paper blasting the return of a military draft. It was overkill, to say the least, to stop any more draft proposals.

The entire response of the Pentagon could have been contained in its second paragraph of the first page, which said: "The All Volunteer Force (AVF) has served the nation for more than a quarter century, providing a military that is experienced, smart, disciplined, and representative of America. Moreover, the AVF is more cost-effective than a conscripted force according to many studies, including an external review by the auditing arm of Congress, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). The AVF continues to exceed the expectations of its framers, and comprises the world's best military force."

A reader of the Pentagon paper could easily see that Rangel had really gotten under the thin skin of the Department of Defense. His remark about a "disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groups" making up the enlisted ranks brought a sharp response along with graphs. The paper pointed out: "Blacks tend to be concentrated in administrative and support jobs, not in combat jobs. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in a draft force. Blacks today account for 21 percent of the enlisted force, but make up only 15 percent of combat arms (e.g., infantry, armor, artillery). ..."

Page seven of the paper reached back to Desert Storm and added, "While Blacks accounted for 23 percent of military personnel deployed to the Gulf, they comprised only 17 percent of the combat or non-combat deaths. Whites, who made up 71 percent of the U.S. forces in the theater accounted for 76 percent of the deaths. ..."

Yes, the Pentagon paper was overkill, but the response also included editorial pieces written by two former defense secretaries. Both writers repeated much of the thinking of the Pentagon. One of them, Caspar W. Weinberger, in his response got under my skin with the following paragraph:

"The bottom line, to which every American concerned about national security should pay heed: Trained and eager volunteers are far more effective soldiers than conscripts. I volunteered for the Army and the Infantry as a private after graduating from Law School in 1941 and trained and served with both drafted soldiers and volunteers. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that volunteers were far more effective than draftees and eager to train and to fight."

That was Weinberger's experience during WWII but not mine during the Korean War. I had to look at the letters before a military serial number to tell the difference between regulars, draftees and National Guard soldiers. RA, US and NG were regular army, draftee and National Guard respectively. When looking over our platoon roster from that time I find we had 17 draftees, 16 regulars, two National Guardsmen plus 7 Korean soldiers. Unlike Weinberger, I, as a platoon sergeant, found the draftees every bit as dedicated and dependable as volunteers. This part of his argument against the draft flies in the face of my experience. There are some good arguments against the draft but his isn't one of them.