And I thought the pizza letters were elitist in nature.

Right you are Peter. Caucasians were over represented in both service and casualties. That’s what you meant, right?

RACE AND ETHNIC BACKGROUND

* 88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian, 10.6% (275,000) were black; 1% listed as others.
* 86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (includes Hispanics); 12.5% (7,241) were black; 1.2% belonged to other races.
* 170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam; 3,070 (5.2% of total) died there.
* 86.8% of the men who were killed as a result of hostile action were Caucasian; 12.1% (5,711)were black; 1.1% belonged to other races

* 14.6% (1.530) of non-combat deaths were among blacks.
* 34% of blacks who enlisted volunteered for the combat arms.
* Overall, blacks suffered 12.5% of the deaths in Vietnam at a time when the percentage of blacks of military age was 13.5% of the total population.
* Religion of Dead: Protestant–64.4%; Catholic–28.9%; other/none–6.7%.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS

* 76% of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower middle/ working class backgrounds.
* Three-fourths had family incomes above the poverty level; 50% were from middle income backgrounds.
* Some 23% of Vietnam vets had fathers with professional, managerial or technical occupations.
* 79% of the men who served in Vietnam had a high school education or better when they entered the military service. (63% of Korean War vets and only 45% of WWII vets had completed high school upon separation).
* Deaths by region per 100,000 of population: South-31, West-29.9; Midwest-28.4; Northeast-23.5

If this whole enterprise ends up removing some of the ridiculous homophobic bias present in our armed forces, then I’m all for that (whether it’s a side-effect of what you predict or because the inclusion of a different cross-section of society simply makes it inevitable).

As for informing foreigh policy through forced citizen participation in the military, I really don’t see the problem with that. But that’s because I believe that if the president can’t convince most of the American public that we need to go to war, then we simply shouldn’t be going to war. What am I missing here?

Charlie,
I understand Rangel’s point and you are correct that a draft will galvanize opposition to any war, as it did when we were in Vietnam. I just don’t think using the draft as a means of informing foreign policy is a wise move. If we were wrong to go into Iraq, then let’s deal with the wrongheadedness of the policy and let’s throw the bums out and make them pay for it with their jobs (I guess we already did that).

I think we all know the well-connected can avoid a draft anyway. And if they reinstate it, anyone who wants out will say they are gay. During Vietnam, there was much more of a stigma attached to such a declaration. And since the military leadership is mostly against allowing gays to serve openly, I don’t think you will see a repeal of Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell. A draft might make some of us feel better, but I think it’s doomed to failure.

Peter,
Agree completely.

I’m with Rangel on this one because he’s right. If a draft had been in place prior to Bush’s reign, there would have been a far greater backlash against the aggressive (and completely wrong) steps taken in Iraq that would have prevented things from getting to the point they are now.

I certainly don’t want my kids to be sent to die, but I don’t want a bunch of other Americans (with fewer choices than my kids) to be sent to die either. When it comes to defending the country from an actual threat (unlike the current situation), then I’d be willing to take that risk (and I think we should all share it equally).

As the new House Ways and Means chairman, I don’t think Charley Rangel needs to worry about being relevant. I think he believes what he says. Trouble is, he’s talking about the Vietnam War, when casualties were disproportionately black and poor. (Back when there was a draft, ironically enough.) If I recall correctly, in Iraq the U.S. casualties have been mostly white and rural. Maybe Charley is just trying to show that Democrats can be just as out of touch as Republicans. Imagine that!

But regarding Rengel, since the idea of re-instituting the draft is opposed by people of every political stripe and would, by any estimation, be a disaster for the military and nation defense in general, I have to wonder what Rengel’s political calculation is.

Since his own party objects to a draft, as do the voters in his district, inherent in the calculation has to be the assumption that it will never come to a vote. (In fact, when his previous draft bill came before the House in 2003, Rengel voted against his own bill!) So I think it’s fair to say that there may be a dash of cynicism in this whole affair.

In any case, the only thing I can figure is that Rengel thinks that if he can scare some of the fence sitters into thinking they may actually have to go and fight, that will increase the pressure to abandon the war. (Kerry used the draft ploy in the 2004 election and I know from personal experience that it worked on at least one voter.)

But still, I can’t see how this works works as a political calculation. If you put a thousand people in a room who think that a draft is a reasonable possibility, and then asked them if they support the war, I can’t imagine you would get 2% support. Anyone so out of touch with reality as to think that the draft will ever come back, isn’t exactly a student of history, defense policy or geopolitics. He or she is more likely to just be giving you a minute between a MySpace posting and his or her next big Wii adventure. So the whole thing just looks like a pretty silly joke.

Although considered in the context of the Page program, it might be fun to see what kind of activities Charlie Rengel and our venerable Congress could think up to keep 17 million 18-20 year old non-military serving boys and girls busy for two years of their lives.