Rumsfeld - Most Army in Vietnam and Most Veterans "Sucked"

I have been wanting to go with this story but have been letting it sink in. First I'll place Rumsfeld's full reponses to cut off the claims that I am taking Rumsfeld out of context.

DoD News Briefing - Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers

Rumsfeld: We're not going to reimplement a draft. There is no need for it at all. The disadvantages of using compulsion to bring into the armed forces the men and women needed are notable.

The disadvantages to the individuals so brought in are notable. If you think back to when we had the draft, people were brought in; they were paid some fraction of what they could make in the civilian manpower market because they were without choices. Big categories were exempted -- people that were in college, people that were teaching, people that were married. It varied from time to time, but there were all kinds of exemptions. And what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone.

Now, are we able today to maintain a force that is at the appropriate size with the appropriate skills by paying people roughly what they'd be making in the civilian manpower market? Yes. Are we doing it today? Yes. Are we meeting the recruiting goals? Yes. Have we been able to attract and retain people in the Guard and the Reserves who can augment that force when necessary, such as today? Yes, we have.

Now, the reason, the desire for doing that, the way I read some columns or articles

Q: But before General Myers answers, what is your thought of what -- the issue that Rangel has raised that when it comes to casualties, it ends up being that blacks and other minorities, because there are so many in the force, end up having a disproportionate share of the casualties?

Rumsfeld: First of all, I do not know that that's historically correct, and I do not know that even if it were historically correct, that it's correct today. I have seen a lot of data on that dating back into the Vietnam era, and there are some ambiguities about it; there have been some debates and discussions about it. The force mix today is, if I'm not mistaken, and I'd have to go back and look at it, different from what it was back in the 1960s, and I am not in a position to say definitively what the data shows today.

On the first line I highlighted, it clearly shows that he thought the majority of veterans who served, including those who gave their lives, sucked, were useless. He did use suck in another context - sucked in - but the rest of his statement shows he also meant it as saying that they were crap.

The second highlighted line shows he is lying or an idiot or both. Armies, volunteer or not, always have the poor and minorities with a disproportionate share of members and casualties. Any fool knows that.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this in that I feel countries should have either universal, a no deferment service, or all volunteer, a well-trained, well-payed, elite service. The draft for Vietnam was as bad as the Civil War with the elite not serving so it meets neither goal.. So the all-volunteer better trained military we have today is better than the military before. But that is different than saying that most of the military before was useless.

Despite the horrendous way he said it, in effect saying that most of the men who gave their lives for our country in Vietnam did so while fulfiling no purpose, he is right but not because they sucked at being soldiers, .

The way he says it is dishonoring the memory of those who died and those who trained them.

It is shocking to hear, particularly from a conservative imperialistic warhawk leading us to another show of force that will end in many deaths, that the Vietnam and earlier dead were useless because they weren't good enough.

If anyone in a democratic administration had said that the majority of veterans and those who died were useless cannon folder they would be hounded out of office.

I, and most of the American people, think that Vietnam was a tragic useless mistake and those who died did so serving no legitimate purpose. I don't blame the draft and the training, however. I blame our misguided leaders who got us in a war that was unwinable because of the legitimate constraints we faced and the fact that the great majority of the Vietnamese people did not want us there.

Should Rumsfeld be hounded because of the way he said it, that most of the people who served sucked at being soldiers instead of saying that a well-trained all-volunteer military is better than a drafted army with many exemptions and not enough training? I think so because it typifies the way he and others think. They would rather dishonor the people in the army instead of blaming the system.