We are in trouble. When I say we, I mean you and I America so don’t go looking for that proverbial frog in my pocket. This isn’t a simple problem that can be handled over night either. It is a problem that has been building for years, a problem that has had many causes and effects. A problem that if we don’t get a handle on what has been happening in this great land of ours we sure as hell will not be around for another 200 years.

Much to the unabashed glee of our liberal countrymen, in the past couple of years the Army and Marine Corps have had trouble meeting their recruitment quotas. Since 2004 the United States Army has recalled over 14,000 in-active reservists back to duty because of the war in Iraq. Last week the Marine Corps announced that it would re-call 2500 Marines from its in-active reserve list. For those of you who may not know, an in-active reservist is someone who has honorably completed their active enlistment contract, usually four years, with our government and who is then placed on an in-active reserve list for another four years. Although this may vary in many cases, as in the Army one can go active for three years, while some specialized duties in all the services require a minimum of six years of active duty due to the schooling involved in those person’s selected specialties. However it has been generally understood that even though the enlistees are obligated by this eight-year contract, once the active duty part of it has been honorably completed the Veteran would not be called upon to serve actively again unless there was a major threat to our homeland. To add to these re-called reservist’s credit and honor I have not heard of a single instance were one of them has refused to re-enter active service when they were called. But you can bet your house that if and when one such reservist ever does refuse to return it will be plastered all over the newspapers and airwaves, ad-nauseam.

Without taking anything away from the honorable men and women who make up our other branches of service I think we will all agree that it has been the Army and Marine Corps who have taken the most casualties in this present war. As any right thinking person would, a young American does not blindly venture forth into what could be his or her own destruction. Besides we Americans do not raise our children to die for their country. But a troubling aspect of the Marine’s shortage of volunteers is that unlike the other service branches most future Marines enlist in the Corps because they want to be Marines and are fully aware of what dangers that honor entails. The problem we now face is that while we find ourselves in the middle of what is going to be a long war on terrorism, we are having trouble finding young men and women who will step forward to fight it.

One part of this problem is that many Americans won’t even admit that we are at war. Even though it is a war where we are fighting for the survival of our freedoms and our way of life here in this country. It is a war in which we are fighting for our very lives and yet this fact somehow cannot be grasped by a large portion of our society. For too many of us, without the threat of a nuclear holocaust or foreign troops marching in our streets, it is a war that is just too abstract, too distant. A war in which many people feel unattached as they are buffered by those few who have taken on the prosecution of it. And now those too few, who have already done their duty, have been ordered to once again make the sacrifices for the rest of us and again enter the fray.

Yes I know that this has not been the first time that reserve units and in-active reservists have been called upon to serve our country. Other instances of this type of activation of our military reservists along with this present war in Iraq were at the beginnings of The Civil War, WW I, WW II, and Korea. What makes this time so different, so disturbing, is that this call-up of reservist troops comes not at the beginning of the war, but over three years into it.

In this war young Americans who have answered their call to duty and signed on for a four-year hitch are likely to find themselves serving two tours in a war zone and in some cases three tours of duty there. While some troopers have reached the end of their enlistment contracts only to find that their enlistments have been involuntarily extended. Not since WW II has an American been called upon to see such extended service. To me this is just further proof that this war is definitely World War IV if you agree, as I do, with those who believe WW III was actually the Cold War. Previously, even during the long sixteen years that passed during the Vietnam War, unless the servicemen volunteered for additional tours in the war zone, one tour was usually all they were going to see of combat in a four year enlistment. And believe me, one is enough. If you argue that during Vietnam we had the draft, I will point out once again that while some draftees were sent to Vietnam, the majority of combat Veterans from that war were in fact voluntary enlistees, as were its casualties.

Now I am not necessarily advocating for another draft. Nor do I believe in a mandatory service of America’s youth, not every American needs to serve in our military. I certainly do not want to see all of our children become combat Veterans. There are a whole lot of people out there who just would not fit into the military. Plus I do like the idea of an all-volunteer force. I believe all-volunteer units are better trained and motivated than those consisting of a mixture of volunteers and draftees. However a draft now would be a temporary fix. Unfortunately our present day politicians do not have the guts to pull one off. They do have the gall to send OUR children to the war but not the courage to see it through and thus do what must be done to insure victory. History has shown that if America is involved in a war that lasts more than three years it needed a draft to sustain our troop levels. What one must remember is this:

All the wars from the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War, except those which did not last more than two years, as in The Mexican-American War, The Spanish-American War and The First Gulf War, had one thing in common that this war does not yet share, a draft.

As of August 28, 2006 we live in a nation of 299,584,917 people, and this figure has risen since I checked. Yet our military has an active duty roster of only 1,421,950. Combining the men and women on active duty, on active reserve and the in-active reservists our total military personnel stands at 2,361,289. Now I understand that you cannot count the full 3oo million people in the United States as potential enlistees. But the age of our military personnel is generally considered to be between ages of 17 and 45. Alone, the male population of that age group in the U.S. as of August 28, 2006, is roughly 126,000,000. That is a very large pool of men from which to draw from considering the few who have stepped forward to serve our country in this time of war. Especially when the total figure given for our military personnel also includes our female volunteers. Since we are at war one would think that we would be able to sustain a fighting force with such a large population of hardy, active, able bodied, young fighting American males without doubling the duty of the few who have already come forth. But therein lies the problem, because apparently we cannot.

As I said this problem has had many causes and effects. This problem can be traced into our homes, our schools and universities, throughout our society and into the workings of our government. Its causes can even be found in our own churches. In the past sixty years America has changed so much that what we once were, what we once believed and what we once dreamed we could become is quickly becoming a memory. And the sad part of this problem of a shortage of willing enlistees is that we were warned it would happen, and that warning was given to us over two hundred years ago.

It is a sad fact of life that only a small percentage of our population ever serves in our military. In saying this I mean that if you could compile a list of Veterans back through our history you would keep finding the same family names turning up over and over again. There are many families that can trace their military service back to the Civil War and still others that can go all the way back to the Revolutionary War. But this tradition of continued service is more than just trying to emulate their fathers. The continued service in these families is because in these homes the future Veterans were taught Patriotism, learned about a duty to our country and believed that there was honor in such duty. They came to understand by the best example they could have had, a Veteran father, that with freedom comes sacrifice. If you could ask them you would find that most of the men who served voluntarily during Vietnam and those young Americans serving today are the children of Veterans. The beginnings of the problem we face today started in the homes of America where Patriotism is a mute subject, or worse yet a joke and where the children learned that others would step forward to provide their freedoms. But as always the home environment is just the start.

Outside the home our children are hit with a daily barrage of anti-Americanism. Because of the continued abuse of the Bill Of Rights, in our schools the children are told that they cannot say the Pledge of Allegiance, sing the National Anthem, or pray to our Christian/Judeo God. All that is considered brain washing and/or an infringement on someone’s rights. While in the Marine Corps’ recruits are repeatedly given classes on the Corps’ history and traditions to make them aware of the pride and honor they are expected to uphold. In our schools history is an almost forgotten subject. Which may explain why we are condemned to repeat our past mistakes. What little history that is being taught here is becoming more and more unfavorable towards America. In our universities professors are excessively teaching our children with more than a slight liberal slant towards our nation’s history. As examples, they are taught that Truman was a war criminal because he dropped ‘The Bomb”, that America is Imperialistic, and basically that America is always wrong. Because of this, unlike the Marines who graduate from Boot Camp, proud of their heritage and willing to go forth and sacrifice for their country, we now have a many young Americans graduating from American schools who are decidedly anti-America. 

Outside of the schools the anti-American barrage continues with slogans such as “No War For Oil” and so on, I’m sure you have heard them all, and so have our children. Daily the media tells of American setbacks and failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, as they editorialize our ineptitude and announce repeatedly that we must withdraw our troops today! They vomit a constant stream of how American troops mistreat prisoners and civilians and circle like hungry sharks with this constant, frenzied fever of catching a soldier or Marine in some type of crime.

Entertainers, cartoonists and columnists degrade the American servicemen and women calling them low lying fruit, too stupid to get a job, Nazis and criminals. While our pastors and priests tell their congregations that the war is wrong, as one church even protests and celebrates the death at our fallen warriors at the funerals. I do have to wonder how Christ feels about his association with this group?

And then we have our government, or I should say our politicians. Congresspersons who voted to send OUR children to war come out only months later to now say that the war is wrong. They demand that we must withdraw our troops as they constantly bicker back and forth over petty politics while OUR children in the war zone suffer for their indecisiveness and backstabbing. Our President bowing to political pressure announces in so many words, that the war is over just months after it had begun, and that was in May of 2003! Dean, Kennedy, Clinton, Kerry, et al, the biggies of the Dems, continue to attack the administration for political reasons while OUR children fight a war they voted for. In a criminal judgment of law our Supreme Court decides that our military must treat these lawless terrorist criminals as POWs. Congressman and Ex-Marine Murtha, whoring for votes couldn’t wait for an investigation or even the filing of charges before he openly condemns Marines with an accused crime. Yes apparently there is such a thing as an ex-Marine. Semper Fi, Congressman, remember?

  As always, our politicians have forgotten, ignored, or never even knew the history of our country and have taken on a war without realizing what must be done to insure victory and a lasting peace. They didn’t consider the fact that any American war over three years in duration needed a draft to sustain it. Everyone in D.C. is now hunting for a set of balls big enough to do what must be done. My bet is that they won’t find a pair in that town and that ultimately the troops will be withdrawn. But for now, as there is no one in our government willing to take the political heat that they would receive from the left by initiating a draft, the burden will be placed on those few who serve by pulling double duty while their contemporaries set at home playing war games on their X-Boxes. For we must not infringe on these American’s lives and draft them. It is so much easier to interrupt the lives of the good men and women who have already served and make them return to active duty. Less troubles that way.  

Meanwhile, as a whole, Congress continues to strip away Veteran’s benefits that have not only been promised but benefits that were already in place. Men and women who have given their lives in a career serving our country continue to see the costs of their medical coverage rise while their retirement pensions do not match the inflation rates. In my mind retired career Veterans should have the best pension package this country can offer. They were always the first in and the last out of any of our nations battles. Yet our politicians promise them the moon, only to take it back. One would think that a nation off 300 million citizens could reward that less than one percent of its population far better than we do. That less than one percent who go forth to face the dangers, make the sacrifices and too many times lay down their very lives to insure our freedoms, rights and our way of life for the rest of us.  

As mentioned previously here is that 200 year-old warning:

Now I ask you, with all that is going on today, if you were a young American would you want to serve in this type of fatalistic, degrading, unappreciated atmosphere?

In the meantime The Few will continue to step forward, to wade through the bull… ,and to serve with honor and courage as always. Only in this war they will be burdened by the lack of support and fresh troops. With the many years ahead of us in this war on terrorism, I fear that these re-called Marines will be only the first 2500.

Semper Fi,

Mike

"Copyright 2006.  Michael E. Tank   All rights reserved. No part of this document may be copied, faxed, electronically transmitted, or in any other manner duplicated without express written permission of the author."