Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 3, 1993 TAG: 9309290310
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAXWELL R. THURMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The House voted to cut $24 million from the 1994 budget of the Selective Service System, leaving $5 million to shut down the agency.
An amendment to the Veterans Administration, Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill would have restored $20 million, but was defeated by five votes.
There are two overreaching reasons why the Senate should restore the money.
First, Selective Service is needed to undergird the national military strategy review of the Clinton administration.
Second, and more important, it is consistent with the ideal of selfless service to our great nation.
Defense Secretary Les Aspin's ``bottom up'' review of strategy has led to continued shrinking in the size of the nation's military.
Twelve aircraft carriers, 20 tactical fighter wings and 10 Army divisions - rounded out by reserve component units - will be preserved.
This means fewer forces - active, reserve or National Guard. The impact of these cuts on future national security occurs this way: With fewer forces, the pool of soldiers who have completed their military service but are obligated for recall in an emergency will shrink.
The question might be: So what?
The Persian Gulf War illustrates the point. If Iraq's Saddam Hussein had used his chemical weapons or effectively massed his Scud missiles, American and coalition force casualties would have been dramatically higher.
These men and women, who had completed their active service, were available for duty in the Persian Gulf as replacements if there had been large-scale casualties.
Thank God, we didn't need them.
The smaller the structure, the less room we have for error in force calculations. Weapons of mass destruction are available to third-, fourth- and even fifth-rate armies. We know that nine countries are capable of delivering nuclear warheads. That number is expected to rise to 25 by the year 2000.
A functioning Selective Service is an important backstop should our forces suffer unexpected casualties in a future conflict. The ability to rapidly call young men to duty for training could, indeed, deter despots from using weapons of mass destruction against our forces.
Could we expand our military in times of crisis without Selective Service or peacetime registration?
Today, with the agency fully funded and with peacetime registration, the first draftee could be serving in uniform within 13 days of authorization to return to a draft. If peacetime registration ends and all other elements of Selective Service remain in place, then the first draftee could be serving in uniform in 42 days. If the entire agency and all its programs are terminated, it could take a year or more to get the draft going again.
Selective Service would have to be reinvented, and all of this would take valuable time - something not always available in a crisis.
The second reason to keep the Selective Service registration is grounded in full citizenship.
At 18, young men now register to vote. With the right to vote comes a responsibility to serve the republic. Enrollment in Selective Service is one of those responsibilities, a vitally important one - to rally to the national defense if necessary.
Ninety-seven percent of America's young men comply with the registration law.
On Aug. 12, 1941, less than four months before Pearl Harbor, the House of Representatives voted to extend the draft by a single vote. I hope this Congress has similar courage and farsightedness.
Vote to keep the Selective Service System.
\ Maxwell R. Thurman, a retired Army general, was commander in chief of U.S. forces during the invasion of Panama in 1989 and has served as the Army's top recruiter.
The Washington Post
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