Draft? Hell no! Call back the guys who already served.

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 05:44 PM

What do you do when you have a shortage of marines to fight what you consider to be a crucial war in a far off place?  You sure don't institute a draft to get the needed manpower, so you have to involuntarily recall Marines from the Ready Reserve.

Though the initial recall is for 2,500 troops, there is no cap on how many could be called up in the future.

Marines in their second or third years of on-call service will be tapped, because those in their first years just finished active duty and those in their fourth years have almost completed their military obligations.

The total of Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve is about 59,000, according to Marine officials.

This is not the first time the corps has called on the Individual Ready Reserve since fighting started in Iraq in 2003. The Marines recalled more than 2,600 troops in the early days of the Iraq war.

The Army has recalled about 10,000 soldiers since September 11, 2001, the majority of those coming in 2004 to help bolster needed positions for troops in Iraq.

Other sources note that there are only about 35,000 Reservists eligible for recall, so 2,500 is slightly more than 7% of those eligible.

Here are a few questions:

1.  Why do you have an 8 year military commitment just because you volunteer, in a time when there is no draft, for a 3 or 4 year active duty tour?

2.  How is it fair to recall people who have already volunteered and served, rather than drafting those who have yet to serve?

3. Is this policy in any way shape or form consistent with all the rhetoric from Bush and the right about this being a "crucial" front in the war on terror, WW III, and the like?

4, Where are all the young republicans that voted for this administration and this war? Let me answer my own question. Many of them are busy posting anti-liberal tirades on their web sites and blogs, ranting about how important Iraq is to the war on terror, how opponents of the war are terrorist sympathizers and traitors, et-blah-cetera.  Check out the utter nonsense on Free Republic some time when you're bored (and don't have anything in your stomach).

I had an e-mail argument with one of the geniuses writing for National Reveiw Online about this very thing--where are all these brave, patriotic keyboard warriors in time of military shortfall?  Is Iraq crucial enough to the "war" on terror to vitriolically support it, but not important enough to risk your own butt on?  Why doesn't Ann Coulter volunteer for God's sake, or Sean Hannity?  Surely Bill O'Reilly could win the war on his own, just by using all that hot air to blow down the cover of the insurgents.

It's the "crucial" "World War" that somehow isn't important enough to upset the plans the affluent have for their lives.