That concept seemed to work in Gulf War I.
Or did I miss something and that military was made up of all rich kids from the Hamptons and Knob Hill?
Well, in Gulf War I we went in, kicked butt, took names, then went home. We didn't have kids sitting around for year-on/year-off bomb-dodging detail indefinitely. Little different. Makes people worry about such things less.
Also, while I think the characterization of the lower enlisted ranks as being full of poor/minority kids who were practically drafted socioeconomically is just a wee bit off, I think there is some kernel of truth to it. No, it's not as though we're taking 100,000 poor kids and shipping them off to Iraq. But anybody who claims the enlisted ranks specifically aren't "filled out" by people who aren't
really all that excited about serving/fighting and are instead taking what was one of the few viable options available to them to avoid abject poverty and a likely prison sentence/drug addiction....well, they've never spent time in the Army.
Put another way, while the bulk of soldiers serving in Iraq aren't "forced" into it by any socioeconomic "draft," the Army would have a hard time maintaining the troop strength for current deployments without that limited portion that
is.
Of course, I personally find that whole issue less interesting than the heavily increased optempo faced by reservists/Guardsmen, in what for many pre-9/11 or even pre-Iraq enlistees is a
dramatic change in the expected duties. I'm not saying that reservists should not expect deployments (they absolutely should, and have for years) but seriously, reservists should not be spending 3 years out of 6 on involuntary activations...and if the
do they
certainly should not be receiving less in benefits than active-duty soldiers who complete enlistments of merely 2 or 3 years.