Delbert Spurlock: Matthew Ridgway warned against relying on an all-volunteer military, and now we can see why
[Delbert Spurlock is a former general counsel and assistant secretary of the Army (dubert@live.com). He lives in Reston, Va.]
America's model for an all-volunteer military has now become a casualty of our war of choice in Iraq. The consequences for our military, our young people and their families, and our diplomatic flexibility to sustain our current commitments and to meet future challenges will be significant. None of this is being discussed in our current presidential campaigns.
Gen. Matthew Ridgway would have predicted as much, and some 20 years ago he nearly did.
I was assistant secretary of the Army for manpower at the time and visited with him for two extraordinary hours at his home in the hills above Pittsburgh. The all-volunteer force, enacted into law in 1974, was for the first time becoming a success. That is, the American people were becoming justifiably confident that the Army was shouldering its mandate to deter war or to defeat any foe it was compelled to face.
Acknowledging the Army's recruiting and training successes, Gen. Ridgway remained unpersuaded that the all-volunteer force was sustainable and that it was good for the country. He believed that it was imperative that our "Army be of the people, by the people and for the people."
He thought that a volunteer Army would distance itself from the people in whose name it acted. He also believed that the all-volunteer force made America more likely to engage in future Vietnams. For him the "nexus" between the nation and the battlefield was all that honored the sacrifice and justified a conflict.
Two decades later we fight a vicarious war, divorced from the toll on our volunteers, their families and the long-term costs of their service for the nation, immune from the horrors of our occupation, having ill-considered both the means and ends in sending our Army into the Middle East....
Read entire article at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
America's model for an all-volunteer military has now become a casualty of our war of choice in Iraq. The consequences for our military, our young people and their families, and our diplomatic flexibility to sustain our current commitments and to meet future challenges will be significant. None of this is being discussed in our current presidential campaigns.
Gen. Matthew Ridgway would have predicted as much, and some 20 years ago he nearly did.
I was assistant secretary of the Army for manpower at the time and visited with him for two extraordinary hours at his home in the hills above Pittsburgh. The all-volunteer force, enacted into law in 1974, was for the first time becoming a success. That is, the American people were becoming justifiably confident that the Army was shouldering its mandate to deter war or to defeat any foe it was compelled to face.
Acknowledging the Army's recruiting and training successes, Gen. Ridgway remained unpersuaded that the all-volunteer force was sustainable and that it was good for the country. He believed that it was imperative that our "Army be of the people, by the people and for the people."
He thought that a volunteer Army would distance itself from the people in whose name it acted. He also believed that the all-volunteer force made America more likely to engage in future Vietnams. For him the "nexus" between the nation and the battlefield was all that honored the sacrifice and justified a conflict.
Two decades later we fight a vicarious war, divorced from the toll on our volunteers, their families and the long-term costs of their service for the nation, immune from the horrors of our occupation, having ill-considered both the means and ends in sending our Army into the Middle East....