Where will Kerry Get The Soldiers?

Recently, John Kerry has claimed he will add more SpecOps and two full Army divisions to our military. I wish to know how he plans to do this without instituting a draft? The military already is worried about enlistment. Any takers?

There is no shortage of volunteers.

There are many people who would join in a heartbeat.

You have a good point there. If there was not a war going on than I would say no problem, but since there is I would see it being difficult to get a whole lot of volunteers. That being said if there are more conflicts on the way and I feel there will be. So whoever is in the White house will have to have a draft to fill all the boots their gonna need.

I also heard that this supposed 'overextending' of our forces is a myth, and that the Army is the only branch with a heavy depolyment, and that the other branches are full of plentiful troops, such as the Marines and such. Not sure if true, just a 'heard it through the grapevine' sort of thing.

I believe that if the military were well paid that there would be plenty of volunteers. A well paid military would also keep the special forces people from running off to private companies.
A well paid military with state of the art equipment would be a good investment for our country to make.

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SWEETEN THE POT

Get a new bunch of attractive incentives...get a bunch of SWAT Team
trained Policepersons to re-align their Affilliation to Military.

Theres probably quite a few people where a BIGBONUS would sway
them to rotate from civilian firefight specialist to military fighter for a set, short, well paid, and loaded with perks, compensation package!!

John Kerry would clone them. That evil evil little man... just kidding...

I don't know where he's going to get these troops from. Once again, this is a case where Kerry SAID he was going to do something, yet had no specifics and nothing to back it up. I'm not a right wing extremist or anything, i consider myself right in the middle--democrat on some issues, republican on others. But i can't vote for John Kerry if he can't tell me HOW he's going to fulfill all of his fanciful promises.

Smells fishy to me. But a draft will happen sooner or later. My fathers generation is lucky (he's 40 now). They were too young for vietnam and are too old now. I'm not even 18 yet, but will be soon and i'm afraid that before i turn 30, i might just have to go fight. I'll fight for my country if needed, but i just hope it doesn't come to reinstating the draft.

Originally posted by everlastingnoitall
I also heard that this supposed 'overextending' of our forces is a myth, and that the Army is the only branch with a heavy depolyment, and that the other branches are full of plentiful troops, such as the Marines and such. Not sure if true, just a 'heard it through the grapevine' sort of thing.

Well no realy they happend to be the most force, now the Marines in the other hand are over extended as it is.

I don't think we need a draft. I think enough people are always willing to serve their country in exchange for college money. I really don't think it is fair of him to accuse Bush of planning to institute a draft when his plan to add thousands of troops without any obvious incentive to enlarge the enrollment base would ultimately almost necessitate a draft in some form (unless he plans to keep extending the 'backdoor draft' he rails against.)

Well we have to take in consideration that it takes two years to trained new recruits so even if the arm forces have increased its quote it will take a while to get the soldiers ready, perhaps we are not that short but just over committed.

I really have to dispute the 'over extended ' myth. Let's look at some numbers from the DoD :Link to Numbers

Total US Active Personnell in the US and Territories: 1,168,195
Total distribution of active personnell worldwide: 1,425,887
Broken down by Branch:

Army- US: 391,126
Worldwide: 102,690

Marines- US: 135,324
World: 40,292

Navy- US: 327,268
World: 50,101

Air Force: US: 314,477
World: 64,609

Deployment in Iraq by Branch and Percentage of total deployable force:


Army- 155,291 Approx 33.4% of total force
Navy-14,838 Approx 3.9%
AF- 15,331 Approx 4.0%
M- 25,568 Approx 14.5%


So how exactly is our active duty force overextended?

(note- These figures are for March 2004)

And this doesn't count the percentages of the Reserve and Guard forces.

I believe he was expressing the doctrine of the JCOS, that we won't have another draft unless the US is invaded by a large land army.

As rummy said ( and P.O.'d a buncha vets) you don't get any quality control when you draft. One of the things that has lessened the dissent during this unpopular war is that, unlike in Vietnam, pretty much everyone signed a piece of paper trading their future for the present.

May have been a poor choice, but a choice they made nonetheless.

We are overextended as far as US military doctrine goes. That is, we are supposed to be able to fight a 2 theatre war without strain.

If you take into acount that so many GI's are tied up in such a small region, you'll see what they are tlking about.

We should be able to occupy the middle east and have enough left over for Europe.

Originally posted by St Udio
-----

SWEETEN THE POT

Get a new bunch of attractive incentives...get a bunch of SWAT Team
trained Policepersons to re-align their Affilliation to Military.

Theres probably quite a few people where a BIGBONUS would sway
them to rotate from civilian firefight specialist to military fighter for a set, short, well paid, and loaded with perks, compensation package!!

I know more then a few SWAT members and I dont think many would switch to the military. They already went through alot of hard work to become SWAT members and do it because they like the job. I dont think the military and police share the same mind set. Many SWAT members are not even full time SWAT they are normal cops most of the time.

SWAT members are great at CQC but there is many difference in military and SWAT training. They dont Parachute, Dive, use things like frag grenades, and rocket launchers to name a few.

They also make good money since most SWAT members have been cops for quite awhile.


Plus we need our SWAT members here in the US.

[edit on 16-10-2004 by ShadowXIX]

This highlights only one of Kerry's problems. He thinks he's going to be a convincing commander-in-chief with his background of treason. He fomented insurrection in the seventies and he's going to lead a conquering army against terrorism?

Kerry better hope he does not get elected. His presidency will go down faster and with greater ignominy than Richard Nixon's because his current supporters will call for his crucifixion when he calls for more military action, which he will most assuredly will have to do.


[edit on 04/10/16 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by everlastingnoitall
I really have to dispute the 'over extended ' myth. Let's look at some numbers from the DoD .

You have your numbers right but let me remind you, it takes manpower to run the bases in this country and around the world you cannot take all the military manpower and send them oversea to Iraq, yes bases like the Army in Columbus GA right now has turned the security from MPs to civilians because their military personnel is reassign, the marine bases still have the security run by MPs.

The base were my husband works now that he is retired, has made mandatory that all military personnel that has more than three years aboard the base will be reassign and the ones that are short (lest than a year) will be allowed to finish.

This time around compared to the first gulf war, reservist and national guard are serving in Iraq, with troops, back then they took the jobs in of troops in the bases around the country, I know I was station in Quantico VA during the first gulf war while my husband was in the middle east.

I disagreed with you with all the things going on in the bases around I can tell you the military "is" overextended.