Quotes about Military Manpower

Nancy Isenberg

Class concerns never lost their potency during the war. In 1864, as defeat loomed and the South’s leaders contemplated augmenting the army with slaves, some feared that the rebel nation would fall if deprived of its lowest layer. Black men would achieve a rise in status through military service, undermining general assumptions about the color-coded social hierarchy.

Napoleon Bonaparte

I shall not continue to suffer a hostile Prince on my boundaries, especially one who is practically a Prussian, not to say an Englishman, and who sells his subjects,

Napoleon was referring to the Elector of Hesse-Cassel. who “rented” his citizens out as soldiers (the Hessians – from Hesse), making money for himself by paying them a fraction of what he was paid for each soldier. Napoleon thought that providing merceneries to other nations for money was an immoral and disgusting thing for a leader to do.

Dmitri Trenin

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian military rotted away. In one of the most dramatic campaigns in world history, from 1988-1994, Moscow's armed forces shrank from 5 million to 1 million personnel.

Margaret Postgate Cole

Though the Military Service Act allowed exemption on grounds of conscience, it was regrettably vague in its definition of either "conscience" or "exemption"; and the decision as to whether a man had or had not a valid conscientious objection, and if he had, whether he was to be exempted from all forms of war service or from combatant service only, or something between the two, was left to local tribunals all over the country, who had no common standard or guidance, and generally - though not by any means invariably - took the view that every fit man ought to want to fight, and that anyone who did not was a coward, an idiot, or a pervert, or all three.

Napoleon Bonaparte

An army which cannot be regularly recruited is a doomed army.

Richard Hakluyt

If frontier wars there chance to arise, and if thereupon we shall fortify, yet will occasion the training up of our youth in the discipline of war and make a number fit for the service of the wars and for the defense of our people there and at home.

“There” referred to the new American Colonies. He was advocating mobilizing the poor and destitute of England and sending them to America to provide manpower for a needed workforce and to be soldiers in the event of wars. The poor have historically been used indiscriminately for military manpower needs until Post WWII America where the military technology began to require minimum standards of intelligence and literacy. With the all volunteer military and higher standards, the majority of the military in America has been from the lower socioeconomic classes.

Nancy Isenberg

In British tradition, the American elite expected the lower classes to fight their wars.

Jim Mattis

There are many people who do not know if the U.S. Army has 60,000 men or 6 million. They do not have a clue about that.

Eric Shinseki

I would say that what's been mobilized to this point - something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required.

George V

I ask you, men of all classes, to come forward voluntarily, and take your share in the fight.

The King was asking for volunteers for the British Army. What is particularly interesting about this quote is the overt appeal to “men of all classes.” This illustrates that there was an extensive class system then operational in Britain. Almost all people knew to which class they belonged. A very popular King could then make a statement like this and no one was critical of his referring to citizens by class distinctions. Even in modern times, Britain is a more class conscious society than America. The response to this appeal was very good, but the First World War developed in such a way that huge manpower resources were needed and the King had to reluctantly assent to a military draft 7 months later.

Robert McNamara

I have a very firm limitation in mind, but I don’t think the Joint Chiefs do. I know they don’t.

The President told McNamara that if the administration does not send the troops the Generals want, they will be blamed for any military failures that occur. If they do send all the troops that the Joint Chiefs wanted, they would be going far beyond the limits that the Defense Secretary recommended and the President would have preferred. JBJ felt he really had no political choice. He authorized the wanted troops further escalating the war. See his special assistant’s question about that decision in {617151}.

Robert H. Scales

… perhaps it might be right and proper to suggest that the underlying issue here is not about failure of our Army. Perhaps the issue might be that no institutional effort can make up for trying over the past 10 years to fight too many wars with too few soldiers?

He was commenting on some of the military disciplinary, logistical, intelligence, and tactical breakdowns that had occurred in the Afghanistan War.

Thomas Jefferson

We could create a Virginia cavalry regiment specifically for the sons of planters, youths whose indolence or education, has unfitted them for foot-service.

Men were being recruited to volunteer for the new American Revolutionary army throughout the colonies. However, the sons of many Virginia planters were neither recruited, nor did most of them volunteer. The reality was that few of them had an education that might fit them for many of the military needs. However, they were not very fit to be foot-soldiers (infantry) as they were mostly, having lived on a slave plantation where they did not work and were truly indolent and would not have the discipline or endurance to march long distances. Jefferson came up with this idea: Create a special Cavalry unit. They could all serve together and would not be a bad example to other men, and they all could ride a horse as that was their primary mode of transportation. This is another of the examples negative effects on whites what Negro slavery wrought.

James Madison

Proofs multiply daily of the difficulty of obtaining regulars, and of the fluctuating resources of the militia. High bounties and short enlistments, however objectionable, will alone fill the ranks, and then too in moderate number.

There was no conscription during the War of 1812 and the State militias were notoriously unreliable.

Military Manpower Quotes