War risk should be shared
By DENNIS ROGERS, Staff Writer
It took me until age 19 to realize I knew everything. The only thing I didn't know was how to make a living. Every job I found required an apron and a goofy paper hat. I was on a career path that offered little hope for money, fun or girls.
That was also the year the college dean became tired of me skipping classes and hanging out in the library all day. He said since I had only passed one class in three full semesters, perhaps I wasn't college material after all. Imagine that.
So I went to see the Army recruiter. He took one look at my buff 111-pound physique and said I had to pass a test before he'd talk to me. Like the dean, he assumed I was as dumb as I looked and didn't want to waste time with a loser.
His interest perked up when I aced his little soldier test. He went from "don't bother me, boy" to "look at the many opportunities the Army offers a fine young man like you."
I was, in Army lingo, a Category I. That made me prime rib in a fatback world.
In 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara declared that 100,000 young men formerly barred from military service because of low scores on the same Armed Forces Qualification Test would be allowed to join the military. He said the benefits of a life in uniform should not be denied those classified as Category IV.
That's what he said. What he meant was that most Category I, II and III enlistees were able to choose training that kept them out of the really dangerous jobs, like the infantry.
The brass was running low on people to send in harm's way. Since Category IV recruits got little choice in assignments, a lot of them ended up in combat jobs the rest of us thought we were too smart to take.
We called them "cannon fodder." Today, more than 2,000 of their names are engraved on that sad wall in Washington, D.C.
Now we're in another ugly war. As with Vietnam, recruiters are having a hard time meeting quotas because fewer young folks are willing to risk their lives in a war that appears to be losing the support of the American people.
So what to do? Rather than a simple, no-deferment military draft that would spread the dangers of wartime service across the full spectrum of American life -- rich and poor, smart and slow, men and women, college kids and drop-outs -- the Pentagon is again turning to Category IV kids to fill military ranks.
The Army has announced it will allow up to 4 percent of new recruits to be from Category IV, up from the previous 2 percent. Today's Category IV includes kids who scored as low as the 16th percentile on tests the military gives to all potential recruits.
Think about that: 16th percentile. That means 84 percent of those who took the test did better than these new soldiers. So much for the argument that we can't have a military draft because borderline soldiers can't be trained to handle high-tech military gear.
If the fight to keep Americans safe from terrorism is worth the lives of any of its young people, then it is worth the lives of all of them, the best and brightest as well as kids in Category IV.
The only fair way to share a war's sacrifice is a draft. Until then, it will be a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. Again.