Volunteer armies are run by incompetent Generals

In a 60 minutes editorial, Andy Rooney made an arguement for using the draft to fight American Wars. Andy is so sure we can fight wars with draftees he even thinks we don't need a standing Army.

Basically he argued that the draft results in a better class of soldier. He's right. Not onloy that I think it results in a better class of General, it improves the whole military. We have a serious, excess suppply of incompetent, even cowardly, generals that's a direct result of a volunteer military.

I went to vietnam as part of a drafted military. I enlisted in the Navy, I wasn't drafted, but without the draft I'd have never enlisted. Not that we did quite as good a job winning our war as Andy did when he was drafted.

One characteristic of draftees that you don't often find in volunteer warriors, is a lack of tolerance of complete bullshit. I'm not sure people like our current crop of generals would actually be generals in a drafted Army. Nobody seems to ever require actual competence to succeed in a volunteer army, all it takes is typical chicken-shit avoidance of actually doing anything.

General Kiley gets to retire. Why isn't he being court-martialed. A General in a real Army that displayed the level of incompetence of this guy wouldn't survive. There's something seriouly wrong with a volunteer army if they make General's out of clowns like this and then don't even require competent performance.

Update. Some comments on Walter Reed, the Army, and the VA