The "All Vounteer" military bears a lot of the "blame"..

When there was a draft, a broad cross-section of the male populace was caught up in the "net".. Sure, there were some gung-ho "kill-em'all" types, but there were also a lot of other types too.. The ones who read books, the ones who were musicians,artists,store clerks,farm boys, etc. Lots of the second bunch probably never even HELD a gun until they were drafted and sent to basic.

The counter-balance of the less militant, could temper the outrageous violence of the bloodthirsty ones who were in the same platoons, units..whatever.. Even if they could not be coerced into participation , the ones who wanted to commit atrocities, probably were afraid that the others might tell, so maybe some events were avoided.

When the military switched to all volunteer, I think that a LOT of young, angry(mostly) men, joined because it would not only provide them with the job security that they could not find in the outside world, but it gave them the opportunity to use guns and strongarm tactics with impunity.

The bookish, artistic types were less likely to join the military, so their tempering influence has been missing.

Add to that, the expanded influence of the mercenaries who REALLY get off on the violence,AND are well paid for it, and we have the military we have now..

There are still the young ones who joined the Guard and or reserves because they needed the educational benefits, but I think the violent ones probably even scare THEM..

Over the years, I have known many guys who joined the police force or became prison guards, specifically to "get paid to kick butt".. I am sure that a lot do it for altruistic reasons, but there are A LOT who are in the former camp..

We have a much more dangerous military these days, and more "incidents" are in store for us, especially when we have a "kill-em-all" commander in chief:(

The volunteer army was a frightened sop to the middle class that was still annoyed over VietNam. It's GOOD for the middle class to be annoyed over things like VietNam.

Bring back the draft.

There's no fucking way I'm gonna go risk my life for this bullshit propaganda war! Let the Repugs fight this war themselves!

And what compelling reasons do you base your support for the draft?

...you will find that even the people who were less gung-ho than the ones you wish to condemn were also caught up in the attrocities commited in Vietnam. The basis for your thesis is flawed. I suggest more research before going on with the expanded paper.

there are even FEWER of them in an all volunteer military.. That was my ONLY point.. A draft catches a cross section...

Just as a required art class in junior high included dunces like me who needed a ruler to draw a line....a voluntary elective art class in college,would include ONLY people with real artistic talent.:)

...it doesn't follow that either because the volunteer force is more gung-ho that this will occur more often, or that because a draft force will cause it to occur less. The psychology of the situation is what causes the events to occur, and the reaction of people caught up in the "mob mentality" has less to do with your "normal" thought process and more to do with the "aberrant" thought processes of the place and time.