Andy Rooney Quotes

I never had the chance to decide; I was drafted to serve my nation. While I received a deferment to attend school, I ultimately served in the United States Army in the years following the Korean conflict.

With respect to where we are now, we have a voluntary army. And if we ever go back to conscription I hope that at time it will be the kind of conscription that was put in at the end of the Vietnam War. And that is, everybody is equally liable to be called to serve the nation in time of conflict.

Congress have a right by the Constitution to raise regular armies, and no restraint is imposed on the exercise of it …. It would be absurd to suppose that Congress could not carry this power into effect otherwise than be accepting the voluntary service of individuals.

Because conscription appeals to essentially no one, the United States has lived with the All-Volunteer Force since the end of the Vietnam War.

Conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription.

Conscription may have been good for the country, but it damned near killed the country.

... we might better reexamine the reasons for entering the war than abolish volunteers and substitute for them men dragged into the ranks by draft.

Nobody wants to go to war, but the burden of service cannot fall only on volunteers who, are attracted to the military for financial reasons.

All able bodied male citizens … are hereby declared to be the National Forces.

It is not believed that a force of more than 400,000 can be secured or maintained by voluntary enlistments. An increase beyond that number would necessitate the simultaneous enactment of a selective service act.

We may need to change the way we think. As in Israel, I think there should be a mandatory draft, where you go away for the service of your country for three years.

Since January 2003, at the height of the debate on the possible unilateral strike against Iraq, I have advocated for a reinstatement of the military draft to ensure a more equitable representation of people making sacrifices in wars in which the United States is engaged.

Also in the new constitution, we want to lower the voting age from 20 years to 18 years and also gradually implement a voluntary military service in replacement of the current compulsory military service.

I hated the draft, but at the same time, it's something that made every American take war seriously.

The weeping voices rise straight up and strike the clouds. A passer-by at the roadside asks a conscript why, The conscript answers only that drafting happens often.

Since far fewer people are recruited to serve in a voluntary military, the connection between America and its military is increasingly tenuous and less personal.

Since we replaced the compulsory military draft with an all-volunteer force in 1973, our nation has been making decisions about wars without worry over who fights them. I sincerely believe that reinstating the draft would compel the American public to have a stake in the wars we fight as a nation.

But although Australia was also involved in the Vietnam conflict, I can remember my dad telling us that if we were in Australia, we wouldn't be drafted until we were 20.

If we're going to ask our kids at age 18 to go off to war and die for their country, I don't see any problem with asking them at age 16 to think about what that might mean.

I was honestly willing to accept compulsory military service, provided that the voluntary system had first been tried out, and had failed to supply the men needed and who could still be spared from industry, and were numerically worth troubling about.

Each man ... shall serve for a training and service period of 12 consecutive months unless sooner discharged, except that whenever the Congress has declared that the national interest is imperiled, such 12-month period may be extended by the President to such time as may be necessary in the interests of national defense.

There are three agencies of government that have to be changed. They are the CIA, the FBI and the Draft Boards under General Hershey.

They talk about conscription as being a democratic institution. Yes; so is a cemetery.

Manhood suffrage means manhood obligation for service in peace and war

The only way to have a volunteer army is to draft them.