All-Volunteer Force: Challenges

All-Volunteer Army: An Ongoing Experiment
(USA Today)…Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras, June 25, 2008, Pg. 9

In 1973, the military draft ended, and our nation began the experiment of manning an Army exclusively with volunteers. A decade later, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger proclaimed, “To all the American people, I would say that the experiment is over. We know that an all-volunteer force can succeed, and we know what it takes to make it succeed.” And yet, perhaps today we really don’t know all it takes to make the all-volunteer force succeed.

The real issue confronting today’s Army derives from three aversions held by Americans:

•We are skeptical of a sizable military. “The spirit of this country,” Thomas Jefferson noted, “is totally adverse to a large military force.”

•While many Americans yearn for some form of national service, few are eager to revisit the inequities of conscription.

•Americans have a low tolerance for long wars.

Retired lieutenant colonel Leonard Wong and retired colonel Stephen Gerras are faculty members at the Army War College. Their views are not necessarily those of the Army.