Could We End the Draft Now?
By Curtis W. Tarr
As part of my duties as Director of the Selective Service System, I spend several hours each week with young people and parents, either directly, or by telephone, or by correspondence.[*] Most frequently they ask the same question, “Could we end the draft now?” The idea of abolishing the draft appears with increasing persistence. We are withdrawing from an active war. We have increased the economic rewards for military service. We are improving the life of the serviceman. We are reducing the size of the armed forces. Members of the prestigious Gates Commission recommended that inductions cease and the nation maintain its armed forces entirely by volunteers after 1 July 1971. Why continue inductions?
These nagging questions bother us now. They also occupied Senators on 21 September of last year as they discussed whether to accept the conference report on the bill to extend the draft for two years, provide pay raises for new recruits, and limit the size of the military forces. Senator John Stennis, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, argued that without the draft the military forces could not attract immediately sufficient numbers of able, young men “to grasp training in military technology.” Senator Alan Cranston opposed this view. He reasoned that the nation could “go forever without a draft” by making “wiser and more prudent use of our manpower. . . .”
Thus Senators weighed whether it would be practicable to terminate the draft before new pay scales had been tested and prior to the end of hostilities in Southeast Asia. The President obviously did not think so, even though he had pledged to work toward ending inductions. The Secretary of Defense, the Secretaries of the military departments and the Service Chiefs had urged the Senate to extend induction authority. But a dedicated opposition to this view spoke for immediate reliance on voluntary methods.
The Senate debate on 21 September ended quickly. The Senators then approved the cloture motion, and accepted the conference report. President Nixon signed the measure into law on 28 September granting the Chief Executive the authority to induct until 1 July 1973.
Was that decision a correct one?
At the time, Senators and administration officials had little statistical material to guide them. Now, however, we know much more about recruitment during July, August, and September of 1971 when the armed services relied entirely on volunteers. This data provides background for a discussion of the implications of terminating the draft immediately, and it also emphasizes the problems which must be overcome as the nation moves toward an all-volunteer force.
During the lapse of induction authority, the month of August provided the best data for appraising the success of volunteerism. During July, many young men did not know about the expiration of the induction authority. Likewise, the Senate vote influenced September figures, altering somewhat the record of enlistments. The chief disadvantage to speculation on the basis of August achievements is that a pay raise for new enlistees had not yet been granted, even though many men who enlisted did so with the hope that a raise soon would be granted.
Recruiting During August 1971. During August, armed forces recruiters enlisted 38,739 men, improving their performance over the same month a year earlier when 30,372 men volunteered. Each of the forces came close to its recruitment goals in August 1971, and the Army exceeded its target by 681 men. These results are encouraging, given the problems that the forces faced with continuing public discouragement over the war and the failure until then to improve starting salaries for enlisted men.
Despite the absence of inductions during August, many young men who enlisted did so because of pressure from Selective Service. These enlistments often are called “draft induced.” Many recruits did not know as yet about the loss of the authority to induct. Indeed, many of them had little understanding of the induction process, despite recent attempts by the Selective Service System to provide information to registrants. Also, the more informed young men perhaps rationalized an enlistment in August on the chance that the draft would be continued and a man might as well serve on a schedule more convenient to his life plans.
It is difficult to determine who volunteers without pressure from the draft. Post-enlistment interviews often mislead us. But we can divide all volunteers into two groups, those of draft age and others not yet subject to induction.
True Volunteers of Draft Age. Among young men of draft age, a rough calculation can be made of the numbers of true volunteers by studying the random sequence numbers (RSNs) of enlistees. Men with low numbers have more reason to react to draft pressure than those with “safer” high numbers. In 1970, we called men into the service with numbers up to 195. In June 1971, we had reached men with RSNs of 125. Thus a man in August might consider that he still had a chance of being taken in 1971 if his number was lower than one of these.
If we assume that men with numbers high enough not to worry about the draft have come into the services for reasons other than to avoid induction, then we can call them “true” volunteers. But it would be incorrect, of course, to assume that only a man with a high number could be so classed: there should be as many “true” volunteers within a group of 20 low RSNs as there are within 20 high ones. This premise provides the basis for calculations of the number of “true” volunteers within any group of enlistees.
There are difficulties with the method. Results in any one month, particularly for small groups of recruits, may represent an inadequate sample, or reflect a seasonal trend. But by comparing the same months in different years, many of these weaknesses become less critical, and we thereby gain considerable understanding of the progress being made toward the all-volunteer force.
Between August 1970 and August 1971, “true” volunteers among draft-age recruits increased from 40% to 70%. The Army figures had risen to 74%, the Navy to 57%, the Marine Corps to 76%, and the Air Force to 75%. This, certainly, is a dramatic change in such a short period of time. When these percentages are considered together with the increases in the number of recruits described earlier, the progress is all the more encouraging. Thus, among the young men who are most vulnerable, those who enlisted to avoid induction dropped from six out of ten to three out of ten.
Recruits Below Draft Age. All recruits are not old enough for induction; indeed, the services typically rely more heavily upon younger men than they do upon draft-age recruits. Among younger enlistees, there is some pressure from possible induction, but it is not immediate and thus not so effective. Even the debated two-year extension would not make some of these men vulnerable. Many of them had not yet been assigned lottery numbers.
We do not have a statistical method for determining “true” volunteers among these younger enlistees, but it seems reasonable to assume that greater numbers of them are true volunteers. If this is so, the forces increase the rate of volunteerism when they increase the share of men drawn from this pool.
Once again, comparisons are helpful. By August 1971, the percentage of all volunteers below draft age had climbed to 73%, (compared to 65% a year earlier) and each of the forces was drawing more than 70% of its men from the younger age group. Thus, this analysis, like the previous one, indicates that the services are depending less upon draft inducement to provide the recruits that they need.
In summary, the armed forces recruiters improved their accomplishments so that in August 1971 they were providing the numbers of men needed by the services. Fewer of these were draft induced. More of these were younger men below the age of induction.
Capability of Recruits. Senator Stennis questioned whether the men who volunteered in the period following 30 June could master the technology of the armed forces. Statistical information can be helpful here as well. A recruit taking the Armed Forces Qualification Test is placed into a mental category, depending upon the percentile within which his test score falls. Thus, among 100 representative men of the military age population, the highest seven will be in Mental Category One, the next 28 in Mental Category Two, 34 in Mental Category Three, 28 in Mental Category Four, and the lowest ten in Mental Category Five.
A comparison may be drawn of the recruits of all ages and for all the forces, by mental category, both in numbers and percentages, for the two months studied. (The August 1970 figures do not include inductees.)
Mental | August | August | ||
One | 1,562 | 5.3% | 1,431 | 3.7% |
Two | 10,102 | 33.2 | 11,374 | 29.4 |
Three | 13,280 | 43.8 | 18,582 | 47.9 |
Four | 5,428 | 17.7 | 7,352 | 19.0 |
Total | 30,372 | 100.0% | 38,739 | 100.0% |
From these figures, it is evident that the armed forces attracted a smaller percentage of Category One and Category Two men, with a substantial increase in the share of Category Three. In partial compensation, somewhat greater actual numbers of One and Two men enlisted. In neither month did the Services recruit a cross-section of the military age population.
Some of these men, obviously, were influenced to volunteer because of draft pressure. Among those who are of draft age, “true” volunteers have increased for all mental categories from 40% in August 1970 to 70% a year later, as we already have learned. But in August 1971, only 59% of those in Category One and 56% of those in Category Two were “true” volunteers, while 75% in Category Three and 87% in Category Four volunteered without draft inducement.
Because volunteerism increases among the lower mental categories, it is obvious that recruiters will encounter greater difficulties enlisting the number of men they want in groups One and Two, compared to Three and Four. Conversely, there is a temptation to make up for the deficit of men in higher mental categories with those in the lower ones. Such a plight would be similar to that of the track coach who cannot find a four-minute miler and thus consoles himself with the three men he has who can barely break the five-minute mark.
A Mental Category Four man usually has a reading comprehension of a fifth-grader. Unless he is given unusual assistance, he cannot maintain normal progress in the beginning classes for recruits; when extra help is available, he may do reasonably well. Many courses, naturally, can be undertaken only by men in Category One or Two, and no amount of tutoring can ensure the success of a man with low verbal or mathematical skills.
The armed forces must recruit men who can understand technological equipment well enough to operate and repair it. For example, a study was made in the Navy to determine how many high mental category men are required for various ships and units with critical missions. The jobs for enlisted men on the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise number 2,834; 2,711 of these, or 95.7%, call for men in Category One or Two. All of the 124 enlisted men on a nuclear submarine are Category One or Two. Likewise, each man in a fighter squadron maintaining F-4 aircraft must be either Category One or Two. These ships and units are not typical of the needs of the entire Navy, but the figures show the necessity for having men with higher than average intelligence in ships or units that obviously have important roles in the total Navy responsibility.
Requirements for Category One or Two men are not so high in the Army and the Marine Corps. Yet combat survivability appears to be a function of mental skill in studies made thus far. Furthermore, ground combat units include more technological jobs than the average layman imagines. Air Force requirements for Category One or Two men in the aircraft and missile units are similar to those of a Navy aircraft squadron. Each of the armed services, of course, can and must use Category Three and Category Four men, many of them. Nevertheless, the forces are dependent upon people with high mental skills, and any system of manpower procurement must satisfy these needs, just as it must provide the numbers of men required.
In the year ending 31 August 1971, the percentage of Category One and Two men dropped from 38.5 to 33.1%. Furthermore, at least four out of ten of these men joined to avoid the draft. This loss of men in higher mental categories could not have been absorbed without affecting the performance of the Services.
Characteristics of an All-Volunteer Force. Since the data on recruits exists by race, as well as by mental category, Service and RSN (if the recruit is old enough to have a number), it is possible to speculate upon the characteristics of an all-volunteer force based upon the recruits of the summer of 1971. A military force is made up of the incoming recruits supplementing those men who re-enlist. Thus the total character of the force changes rather slowly. But ultimately it will depend upon the character and capability of the new recruits, since almost no one enters the Services above the recruit level.
To assess the recruits of August 1971, we must have some standard by which we can make a comparison; again figures for the previous August can be helpful. First, let us look at the force of inductees, true volunteers, and draft-induced volunteers who entered the armed services in August 1970. This force, expanded to 100,000 men to show percentages easily, had the following breakdown among races and the four mental categories.
Category | Total | Caucasian | Negroid | Other |
One | 5,981 | 5,920 | 33 | 28 |
Two | 32,841 | 31,948 | 689 | 204 |
Three | 42,046 | 36,779 | 4,759 | 508 |
Four | 19,132 | 12,394 | 6,405 | 333 |
Total | 100,000 | 87,041 | 11,886 | 1,073 |
Men listed under “Other” include Orientals, Indians, Eskimos, and smaller racial groups. The services do not maintain records on the Spanish-speaking; they are included under “Caucasian.”
From this information, we see that there are fewer Category One men (5.9%) than we would expect in the military age male population (7%), but that the combined total of Category One and Category Two men (38%) exceeds the comparable share of that population (35%). Blacks entered the force in proportion to their share of the military age population, although the forces had difficulty attracting blacks in Category One and Category Two.
Now let us compare these August 1970 recruit figures with those for the volunteers of a year later. We already have seen that we can estimate “true” volunteers for the draft-age recruits. We have assumed that a greater share of the recruits below draft age are true volunteers than would be true for the older men. Let us then make another assumption: that 85% of these younger men are “true” volunteers. One can dispute this estimate, but we can be certain that some of these youths are draft-induced and it also seems reasonable that the percentage should be above the 70% for the draft-age people. If we apply this 85% factor to the actual number of younger recruits in each category, add these to the “true” volunteers of draft age, and expand that number to 100,000 enlistees, we learn something about the character of the recruits in August 1971 that would have come into the armed forces without any threat of a continuing draft.
Category | Total | Caucasian | Negroid | Other |
One | 2,767 | 2,732 | 16 | 15 |
Two | 27,361 | 26,572 | 625 | 164 |
Three | 20,442 | 41,319 | 7,631 | 480 |
Four | 49,430 | 12,924 | 7,196 | 322 |
Total | 100,000 | 83,547 | 15,468 | 985 |
Two interesting implications may be drawn from the 1971 results, compared with those of 1970. First, the armed forces lose Category One men to an alarming degree, and Category Two men drop to approximately the percentage found in the military age population. The Category One men are less than half of their previous numbers. Category One and Category Two men combined fall from 38% of the total to only 30%. Furthermore, it is evident that these losses among the men in the higher categories is made up largely by recruits in Category Three, where the share of the total moves from 42% to 49%.
Second, the number of blacks increases by nearly a third to a share of the total well above the number of blacks in the military age population. This is accomplished by a slight increase in Category Four blacks, and a substantial increase in Category Three, despite some loss of Category One and Category Two men. Changes in “Other” minorities are not consequential.
Problems Related to the All-Volunteer Force. Does the foregoing data make suspect the feasibility of the all-volunteer force concept?
No, it does not. Drawing that conclusion is like saying that a corporation facing a loss of earnings will inevitably become bankrupt, disregarding the possibility that it may cut expenditures, increase revenue, and realize substantial profits.
Problems do exist as we work toward the all-volunteer force. It is not wise for us to proceed optimistically without understanding the obstacles ahead. But what would not have been feasible in the fall of 1971 can be achieved in 1973 if progress continues and certain problems are overcome. What are these problems?
First, can sufficient numbers of men be recruited?
While the Services recruited effectively in August 1971, it does not appear that they could have achieved their goals if they had relied entirely upon “true” volunteers, both among the draft-age men and the younger ones as well. In order to ensure adequate accessions, the armed services are attempting to stimulate recruitment while they improve the living and working conditions of the men who serve.
Studies now are under way to understand the motivation of recent recruits. Definitive conclusions cannot be made, but I do have some experience from talking with young men at induction stations. When you ask one why he decided to enlist, most frequently he answers that doing so offers him a good job, with the promise of reasonable pay and valuable training, at a time when civilian work in his community was difficult or impossible to find. If this scattered response has some general validity, then the success of the last summer may diminish somewhat as the job market improves. The armed forces must learn to attract the men they want and to augment where possible those factors that youth seek. The vagaries of the job market should be offset to some degree by higher pay that now is given to starting men, something not true last summer.
Experiments with recruiting techniques, from advertising to personal contact, have attracted rather wide public notice. But no actions are better known than the attempts to fit service life to the valid concerns of young men. The troop leaders in the field usually emphasize that the able young men with whom they work are a “different breed.” “You can’t treat them as we did in my time,” is a common admonition.
Quite understandably, the services must approach such change with caution. A military force must be a disciplined one, or else the entire effort toward training and equipping it could be worthless in an emergency. Attempts are made to reduce irritants without undermining the responsiveness of men to essential orders. Hopefully an approach can be found that will fulfill the requirements for national defense and still meet the reasonable objections of young men to traditional military life. Experimentation is bound to bring disappointments, but hopefully it will introduce improvements as well.
One of the most powerful motivations attracting a man to a job is the awareness of being needed. As I visit installations of each of the Services, I talk with young enlisted men and officers. Consistently they claim that the Services operate with a surplus of men to accomplish the mission. This may or may not be some just criticism that wiser, more experienced leaders must evaluate. Each of the Services now is looking carefully at the numbers of men assigned at tasks to determine if greater economy in manpower is possible. Improvements in the utilization of men will improve the attractiveness of the Services, increase retention of the more able, and thus lower the total requirements of new manpower.
The problem of attracting sufficient numbers of men is not insurmountable, given the time required to develop new recruitment programs and to improve the manner in which human resources are used.
Second, will the men who enlist be able to perform the tasks that must be accomplished?
It is evident that the draft encourages men in higher mental categories to enlist. In an all-volunteer environment, recruiters must be prepared to work with much more care in order to find those Category One and Category Two men who might have an interest in the armed forces. They are not so likely to walk into a recruiting office.
To attract the more able young men, the Services must be prepared better than they now are to offer satisfactions that derive from stimulating, appropriate training. An able man desires the feeling of accomplishment. He wants his work to tax his capability.
I talked one day with a young man who repaired auto-pilots on fighter aircraft. We stood in the shade near a Vietnam runway until a plane landed and taxied to position on the flight line. Eagerly the lad ran to greet the pilot and to ask if the auto-pilot had worked properly. Returning to me with a discouraged look, he explained that the pilot had been too busy in flight to use the auto-pilot and thus no difficulties could be reported. The young man then related how long he had gone without something to do! Obviously, to keep him happy, you must provide him with ailing auto-pilots. Without expressing criticism of the staffing at that particular place, I suggest only that we must make certain that our manpower requirements provide adequate responsibilities and work to challenge our best men. This is the matter of economizing skills, somewhat different from economizing manpower described above.
A corresponding problem exists in gaining greater use from the Category Three and Category Four men. It is imperative to match men to the actual skills required by jobs. Too often the Services have demanded a performance capability, either mental or physical, beyond that necessary to accomplish the task. Obviously the armed forces are not unique in doing so: we have practiced this in our society generally. An attempt now is being made to explore other training approaches for young men who have difficulty with written tests. For example, some helpful changes in basic training are being introduced in an effort to employ the techniques used for selecting recruits with low verbal skills. Senator Cranston is correct when he judges that wiser and more prudent use of manpower can be made by the armed services. Progress in this highly creative aspect of personnel management is difficult to achieve, but it is not impossible of accomplishment.
In the difficulties relating to improper assignment, conscription has contributed to inadequate management of human resources. The present administration in the Department of Defense has made it clear that the remaining months of draft pressure must be used for the necessary restructuring of manpower management.
As compared to the challenge of providing sufficient numbers of recruits, the difficulty of attracting those specifically who will master the jobs essential to the missions of the forces will be greater by far. To overcome the deficiencies of “quality,” the Services must attract the men with higher mental aptitudes. Furthermore they must use more effectively those with lower aptitudes. Each requirement involves a fundamental reorganization of the Services, both in attitudes and practices. Quite obviously, both require time for accomplishment and it is time that must be used well.
Finally, what will be the representative character of the armed forces?
It appears that the draft helps to provide men for the Services with racial backgrounds in nearly the same proportions as those found among the entire population of military age youth. Absence of the draft causes increasing numbers of blacks to be taken into the Service, which many Americans would consider to be unfair both to blacks and whites.
The key to the recruitment of a force reasonably representative of the population is to enlist a larger share of youths in the higher mental categories among all races. It is imperative to find these men and persuade them to join the services, and not simply to fill the forces with Threes and Fours, who often will not be able to perform some of the most important tasks. Furthermore, many of these able men must be minority persons. Without these, there will not be sufficient numbers of blacks and men of other races to accept positions of leadership.
Thus the answer to this question may be found partly when the second question about “quality” is answered. In addition, better techniques must be found to enlist minority men in Categories One and Two.
Was it Prudent to Extend the Draft?
Since President Nixon signed the draft-extension bill on 28 September 1971, the Department of Defense has asked for only 10,000 inductees in November and December. Calls for calendar year 1972 probably will be low, possibly less than in any year since 1963 or even before the Korean War.
The primary reason for low calls in Fiscal Year 1972 is the 50,000-man-year limitation imposed upon the Army in the draft-extension law, in addition to improved recruiting achievements. The man-year restriction meant that the Army would have had to eliminate 5,000 men by 1 October and not replace them before 1 July 1972; since this abrupt reduction was impossible, even greater manpower cuts are required because the later in the year an action is taken, the more drastic it must be to achieve the goal.
These cuts supplement the programmed force reductions for the Army as a result of withdrawals from Vietnam. Accordingly, the Army leaders must be more concerned now with meeting the man-year limitation than they are in maintaining force structures. When the 1973 fiscal year begins on 1 July 1972, it is more likely that monthly accessions will increase. Of course we do not know whether recruiting by then will provide the manpower necessary to maintain the forces at required levels.
Until 1 July 1973, the draft will encourage men to join the Services, despite the level of inductions. Hopefully this inducement will help the armed forces to attract men with higher mental abilities. The same inducement will assist the National Guard and Reserve forces to enlist men to meet their new responsibilities in the total force concept. Finally, where the incentive of new pay scales, better conditions in the Services and withdrawal from the war in Southeast Asia fail to attract sufficient numbers of men, the draft will be ready to provide them. In the transition from inductions to volunteerism, the defense capacity of the nation will not suffer.
Could we end the draft now? We could not do so with the assurance that we could attract the numbers of men we will need, or be certain that those who do enlist will be able to perform the critical tasks upon which the structure of national defense must be built. The President made an appropriate plea that his authority to induct be extended, and the Congress acted wisely when they agreed to do so.
__________
During World War II, Dr. Tarr served as an enlisted man in the U. S. Army. He received his B.A. in economics from Stanford University in 1948, his M.A. in business administration from Harvard University in 1950, and his Ph.D. in American history from Stanford in 1962. Dr. Tarr was a research assistant and instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Business from 1950 to 1952, and was vice president of the Sierra Tractor and Equipment Company, Chico, California, from 1952 to 1958. During 1954-1955, he was a staff member on the Second Hoover Commission. From 1961 to 1963, Dr. Tarr was associated with Stanford University. He also served as lecturer in the School of Business during that period. Dr. Tarr became the Director of Selective Service on 20 March 1970. Prior to his appointment as head of Selective Service, he had served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) since June 1969. Dr. Tarr was President of Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, from 1963 until his appointment as Assistant Secretary. Since the submission of this article, he was appointed State Department Coordinator for Security Assistance.
[*] Dr. Tarr was appointed State Department Coordinator for Security Assistance by President Nixon on 12 April 1972.