Charles B. Rangel Quotes

Since far fewer people are recruited to serve in a voluntary military, the connection between America and its military is increasingly tenuous and less personal.

Because conscription appeals to essentially no one, the United States has lived with the All-Volunteer Force since the end of the Vietnam War.

If we're going to ask our kids at age 18 to go off to war and die for their country, I don't see any problem with asking them at age 16 to think about what that might mean.

Nobody wants to go to war, but the burden of service cannot fall only on volunteers who, are attracted to the military for financial reasons.

With no draft, the only people who went to war were those who wanted to, or at least those who wanted to join the military.

Since January 2003, at the height of the debate on the possible unilateral strike against Iraq, I have advocated for a reinstatement of the military draft to ensure a more equitable representation of people making sacrifices in wars in which the United States is engaged.

I don't want to sound like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, but I do think there should be some sort of national service for young men.

Conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription.

I was honestly willing to accept compulsory military service, provided that the voluntary system had first been tried out, and had failed to supply the men needed and who could still be spared from industry, and were numerically worth troubling about.

The bottom line is that we have a more representative sample of middle America in the volunteer force in 1990 than can be achieved in any draft.

It is fundamentally wrong—and cowardly—in a democratic society to claim that those who stand between us and a potential enemy should be risking their lives simply because they are ‘following the marketplace’ and the military is their ‘best deal’.

I think a draft produces a better Army than the one we would have with all volunteers, because I think you get average Americans if you have a draft. And if it's an all-volunteer Army, you get people who join up because of some problem in their own lives. They don't have anything else to do, they don't have a job, or they can't find what they want to do, so they join the Army. And it doesn't produce the best Army.

I am extremely proud of our remarkable men and women who serve in our military, but the reality is that this is a shrinking percentage of the American population. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a growing disconnect between our military and civilian population. At one time, we had participation from nearly every American. Victory gardens, metal collections, saving stamps and bonds-everyone did their part to support our military. We simply don't do that anymore.

By requiring all 30 million Americans age 18 to 25 to perform two years of national service, in the military or civilian life, we will be asking for a shared sacrifice from all American citizens.

All these fifty-year-old guys wearing baseball caps and shorts and acting like children. It winds me up. Men don't have to take responsibility anymore. Most of the guys I know would punch me on the nose for saying this, but maybe we do have to bring back conscription.

If these men decided that they have to go in there and fight, I want them to send their own children and grandchildren. I want them to not send a bunch of strangers' kids in there to fight and die.

But although Australia was also involved in the Vietnam conflict, I can remember my dad telling us that if we were in Australia, we wouldn't be drafted until we were 20.

It is the duty of our men to enroll themselves in the national services. We need all our manpower for defence. For the military and... we need a quarter of a million men.

We have an incredible national forest service, and we have an incredible child outreach program that the president has put together. I don't see anything wrong with national service for a minimum of two years. If we were to require that, we wouldn't need a draft.

I have never had a problem with national service. I am not sure the draft is the way to go about it, but I am positive that you live in a society and you take from this society, which every citizen here does. You owe something back to this country, and that should be paid back in some form of national service.

The government has the right to the military service of all its able-bodied citizens.

Your King and Country need you.

You dare not—at least I hope you dare not—attempt a conscription to fill the ranks of your regular army.

I succeeded in staying out of the military during the Vietnam War, and I would never assume the right to tell others to do a “duty” that I shirked.

We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.