Now here is a Machiavellian way to gut out the volunteer military.

Troke

On TB every waking moment
http://corner.nationalreview.com/

Derb — All joking aside, if President Obama pushes the forced volunteerism angle too hard, guess what's likely to happen? College-age kids enticed to join AmeriCorps, or ObamaCorps, or WhateverCorps will be kids not joining the U.S. Armed Forces.

ROTC still won't be allowed on college campuses, but I'm sure ObamaCorps will be heavily represented. And if the benefits to joining are remotely comparable to those of joining the Armed Forces — college tuition reimbursement, salary of some kind, chance to score with cute girls, etc. — you can bet that many kids will sign up to build houses in the middle of Atlanta instead of deploying to Whereeverstan to get shot at.

For eight years, the out-of-power Left has praised dissent as the highest form of patriotism, leaving little room for actual, you know, patriotism. If/when President Obama and company advertise volunteer service as an option equally as patriotic as military service — and make the goodies comparable — who will be left to defend our nation?

Many, if not most, Americans join the military for reasons beyond economic incentives. That said, for an 18-year-old kid debating what road to travel in life, offering an "equally patriotic" alternative to military service (during wartime!) is going to be awfully tempting for many. Bad road to go down.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Considering the number of volunteers the military has been able to get during a protracted war, my guess would be that those same people would still be choosing a military option.

Something else to consider, you are in an HR position and you have two candidates in front of you with equal qualifications except one just finished an active duty tour in the service and the other jsut got out of Americorp. Which one are you going to hire? That reality may well actually increase military recruitment candidates.
 
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