A Soldiers Blog

Military Update: Draft rejected, but manpower crunch is real
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
European edition, Saturday, October 9, 2004

To ease fears fueled by the Internet that the Bush administration has secret plans to reinstitute a military draft after the Nov. 2 election, House Republican leaders on Tuesday forced a floor vote on the issue and then watched with satisfaction as colleagues rejected the idea, 402-2.

“The administration … the Department of Defense … the House of Representatives clearly reject … returning to military conscription,” said Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., who as chairman of the military personnel subcommittee served as floor manager for a bill he opposed.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., had introduced HR 163 in January 2003, as U.S. forces gathered on the borders of Iraq. Rangel wanted to underscore the burden of a preemptive war on volunteers, a disproportionate number of whom, he argued, are racial minorities or from lower-income families.

If more American families had “kids going off to war,” Rangel said at the time, the president would be more reluctant to start one.

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