pyotr filipivich wrote:
> I missed the Staff Meeting but the Minutes record that "Billzz"
> <billzzstring@starband.net> reported Elvis on Fri, 27 Feb 2009
> 23:41:30 -0800 in misc.survivalism:
>> Anyway, the point was that the draft army, in the United States, gave many
>> opportunities to people. The current system does not.
>
> The draft army exposed a lot of people to the idea of a career in
> the military, who otherwise would have never considered it. Some
> re-upped and remained NCOs. You need them too. Others discovered a
> talent, and went to OCS, and made good officers.
> Others did their tour, got out, joined the reserves or national
> guard, got a commission, and did served their country on weekends.
>
> Still others said "that was fun. I wouldn't take a million
> dollars for the experience, but you couldn't pay me to do it again."
>
> And the fact remains, that in a large military, there is more
> opportunity for promotion than in a smaller one. Two stories. When
> they first issued Service Numbers, (now I can't remember his name,
> friend of my Dad's back when) he was issued number 1776. Meaning he
> was the one thousand, seven hundred and seventy sixth officer from the
> top - as a Lieutenant. And it was in 1939 that they had essentially
> gave all the enlisted men a three day pass to get them off base, the
> officers were going to celebrate. They had had their third promotion
> to 1st lieutenant in that year. Woohoo! Time to Party!
> Of course, in 1940, promotions started picking up, and picked up
> again in 1941, and just went nuts in 1942. Something about expanding
> an army of 200,000 to over 8 million.
Don't forget the proclivity of US field officers to lead from the front...
> Similar thing had happened in 1917. in the summer of 1917, the
> Army (including Philippine Scots and the like) was around a hundred
> thousand officers and men. In 1918, there were 88,000 officers alone.
> You can imagine what opportunities for advancement there were.
Still no need for a draft army in peacetime.
Dan