IV: Minimum Federal Wages for Draftees

We have to ask young men to do our fighting for us, involuntarily if necessary; we should not ask the young men to pay our taxes for us. The draft should not be used as a means of shifting the financial burden of war or preparedness onto the same young men who are selected to carry the burden of risk and disrupted careers. The "cost" of attracting the 2.5 or 2.75 million enlistees in peace-time is not really saved when we draft them; it is merely shifted, in the form of lower wages, from taxpayers to the men in the service.

Too often the questions of fairness and discrimination are confined to the choice of who shall serve, with little attention to how we might shift some of the burdens of service from those who serve onto those who are served. Those of us who do not serve because we are too old or because we are otherwise not selected, should be careful not to use the draft as a way of holding military wages down. And there is no reason to suppose that a man's sense of duty is weakened, or his morale undermined, by having his services appreciated with a decent wage.

Surely the federal minimum wage is not too extravagant for a young man serving in the army in either peace or war.

V: Volunteer Army in Peacetime

Most of the inequity in the present pay scale for draftees could be elimi- nated, and reasonable pay differentials maintaned among servicemen, with pay increases that would total between $2 billion and $3 billion per year. We recommend such increases on grounds of fairness and in the belief that a democracy with a GNF of over half a trillion dollars, and with income-tax rates lower than those prevailing before Vietnam, has no compelling need to use conscription to keep military wages down.

Official estimates of the likely cost of achieving a volunteer force of about 2.7 million men in peacetime appear to us somewhat exaggerated; pay increases on the scale we recommend should have an appreciable effect on enlistments. If so, the net cost will be reduced through reductions in training and other expenses associated with the higher turnover of drafted men.

VI: More Civilian Employees

Paying young men more nearly what they are worth in the civilian economy can have other benefits, through a better appreciation within the military services that drafted men are not cheap resources.

An energetic and continuous effort should be made to replace uniformed men with civilian employees, male and female, in all of those tasks in which the discipline, the traditions, and the other qualities associated with uniformed armed forces, are not essential. This may cost more; if so, we have been using the draft to save ourselves money by putting civilans in uniform.

VII: Review Policy on Reserves, National Guard

The Reserves and Natiodnal Guard should be considered ready, and should actually be ready, to serve in an emergency. If, however, as recent experience suggests, they are either not ready or not available for a war on the scale of the war in Vietnam, the worth of continuing the present reserve and National Guard system ought to be brought into question.

VIII: No State Quotas

Military service is national service, not service to a state or locality. Eligible young men ought to be equally vulnerable to selection, no matter what state they reside in. Randomized selection should be designed to achieved this and should not be based on state quotas.

IX: Choice of Timing Under Lottery