Debate: All Volunteer Force

The NFL draft is nigh. Every year at this time we take time to reflect, put our life in perspective, and devote an unhealthy amount of emotion to celebrating the comoditization of young men who have devoted their lives to excelling at a game that we love to spend money on.



So I guess it makes sense that the debate over the all volunteer force (AVF) has also fired up.

Over the past decade, this all-volunteer force has been put to the test and has succeeded, fighting two sustained foreign wars with troops standing up to multiple combat deployments and extreme stress.
This is precisely the reason it is time to get rid of the all-volunteer force. It has been too successful. Our relatively small and highly adept military has made it all too easy for our nation to go to war -- and to ignore the consequences.

I lean in favor of the AVF. It has its problems but the alternative is scarier.

On the other hand the arguments for sharing the experience are compelling. The best solution would probably be compulsory national service with options--the military, USAID, Peace Corps, urban education and renewal, etc.