"If we don't address this issue, we're going to have a shrinking number of young people who are qualified for military service, and when you have an all-volunteer military, you have to have a large pool to draw from, " he said in an interview following his speech.
For the foregoing reasons, among others, the nation's all-volunteer military is already under considerable stress.
The truth is this is an all-volunteer military and the people who are there signed up for it.
In a time when less than 1 percent of the population serves in a volunteer military, most Americans have no personal connection to service members or veterans.
In Iraq, the warriors are "volunteers" from an "all-volunteer" military.
If the immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason those lucky enough to go to college dodged the draft, why did we not encourage our children to volunteer for military service once that war was done?
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First, the U.S. military is an all-volunteer force, which means that service members freely choose to take on both the obligations and benefits of military life.
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There has been no active draft since 1973, when the military converted to an all-volunteer force.
But Canada's Conservative government has argued the situation has changed since the Vietnam era because the US military is now an all-volunteer force.
In the next four years we will continue to strengthen our homeland defenses, we will strengthen our intelligence gathering services, we will reform our military, the military will be an all-volunteer army.
Since the draft was dissolved in 1973 and the military was converted into an all-volunteer force, young adults no longer live with anxiety over the prospect of mandatory service.
Protect the military culture essential to the All-Volunteer Force.
Mrs Kelley is married to a prominent cancer specialist in the Tampa area and works as a volunteer with wounded veterans and military families at the MacDill Air Force Base in the city.
Ms. Kelley, a 37-year-old volunteer who organized social events for military personnel, developed misgivings after friends in her Tampa social circle urged her to drop the matter, saying the probe would only cause bigger problems, the people familiar with the case said.
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We believe that imposing this burden on our men and women in uniform would undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all levels, have adverse effects on the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughters to military service, and eventually break the All-Volunteer Force.
Many of the referenced studies by anti-military groups focus on Vietnam Era, pre-All Volunteer Force service, and the circumstances have changed drastically since.
In contrast to the "command and control" ethos in effect in the military (and his company), this was an all-volunteer effort, with 100 people contributing.
And this year -- the first time in the history of the all-volunteer force -- the Navy and every component of every branch of the military, active, Guard and Reserve, met or exceeded their recruiting and retention goals.
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And finally, my goal has been to work hard to ensure that the concerns and needs that we hear actually lead to some real change coming out of Washington, because the quality of the lives of our military and their families means a great deal, because in the history of our all-volunteer force, we have never asked so much of so few.
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