An Army general who served in Afghanistan says America's all-volunteer force is in good shape but might benefit from tweaks that would open military service to qualified people who get turned down only because they are slightly overweight or have too many tattoos.
What is not needed to improve the recruiting pool is a revival of the draft, retired Army Lt. Gen. David W. Barno told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on
Newsmax TV on Monday.
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Reinstating the draft wouldn't help "from the standpoint of getting better quality in the door … because we're meeting those quality standards now," said Barno, senior commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2003-05, now a distinguished practitioner in residence at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C.
Seven of 10 people who volunteer for duty are turned down, and "that would be true in the draft as well," because either way the military is still drawing from the same pool of potential recruits, he said.
"The fact of the matter is that nations served by people that volunteer to step forward and put themselves in the line of fire — we're better off with that than by compelling people who really don't want to be there to be in the force, and then potentially to send them into very tough positions overseas," said Barno. "No leader really wants to deal with that."
Barno acknowledged that military and civilian life might be more segregated socially and culturally under the all-volunteer system.
"Do we have enough engagement out there in the population as a whole, where only less than 1 percent of that population serves?" he said. "That's a different question."
He also said Americans ought to wonder why so few in the eligible age groups — 17 to 39, depending on the branch of service — are considered serious candidates.
"It's sobering to think about a nation where we're growing a generation where seven out of 10 Americans can't even qualify to put their right hand up and volunteer to be in this military," said Barno.
Many of the deal breakers for recruitment make sense, said Barno, citing criminal histories and drug dependencies. But restrictions on weight and body art might warrant another look, he said.
The reason to look at tattoos, he said, is that they are "completely different today than 35 years ago when I was first coming into the military."
Weight can be addressed with "an extra week or two on the front end of basic training," he said.
Barno said the scandal of backlogged care at military hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs has been "very sad to see" and "troubling" because "it sends the message that the nation's not doing a very good job taking care of those that have served in the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan."
But he said the desire to serve among young Americans is strong and widespread.
"I find that there's a lot of people out there who traditionally we might not think of as coming into the military — people who are in firms in Silicon Valley, that are working for Google or Microsoft, people that have very high-tech backgrounds — that want to find a way to serve their country," he said.
"They might not want to be full-time on active duty, but they might want to be in the National Guard or the Army Reserve or the Air Force Reserve, and find a way to do something to contribute," said Barno.
"These are very talented young men and women. I run into them as I travel around the country, and they're still out there, and we should be very happy about that."
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