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Al Peffley
The draft was a bad choice for young men in high school and college because of Napoleanic ground warfare tactics, chosen by mostly poor ground combat leadership of the times. Many of us who volunteered into military service positions from our class were fortunate to not be subjected to the mistakes on the battlefield that created so many combat casualties in 'Nam and Korea. The Iraq wars did not repeat the tactical errors of the Asian conflicts because leadership fought to win, not to apease global politicians, anti-war activists and bankers. We would have lost more classmates if those volunteer opportunities were not accessable to many of us (the trajic loss of Mike and his fighter plane off the California coast was an exception...) I only faced the prospect of imminent death twice on the many strategic missions I participated in during the six years that I flew for the US Navy, not bullets and rocket attacks like the Marines and Navy Corpsmen experienced in ground combat. I spent five years working on a Future Combat Sytems team (1998 to 2004) to better equip our ground combat warriors and to increase their survivability in tactical ground and air operations. The results of that Army development program effort are being applied today around the world to reduce the death risks, but they are still there in the current conflict ops. Everything still cannot be addressed from tactical air operations, tactical rocket and "drone" (AKA as UAV's) attacks, shipping blockades, or ground combat robotics. Pray for the innocent Persians who just want peace, public safety, and their freedom.
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