U.S. Plans Targeted Draft for Computer Personnel

waytoomuchcoffee writes "The US Selective Service System is drawing up plans for a 'special skills draft'. There is already a system in place to draft health care personnel, and this system would be expanded in order to 'rapidly register and draft' computer specialists."

Comments

never too late...

[djocyko]

to move to canada =\

But...

[James A. J. Joyce]

...how do they determine who has "computer skills"? And is this really feasible? How will they make someone work for them? How will they even know if a computer programmer is a computer programmer? Do they have some kind of national database of them? This isn't anything like normal conscription, and sounds like a dodgy idea to me.

Contingency plan?

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

This doesn't make too much sense to me.

In the past 10 years, computer specialists in the military were offered large retention bonuses to stay in the military and reenlist. Now those bonuses aren't to be seen. I know from experience.

So why isn't the military trying harder to retain these already military trained computer specialists but supposedly drawing up a draft? Something doesn't jive here.

real deal on selective service bill

[bsDaemon]

there are twin bills in the house and senate in order to conscript for active duty, rerserve military, and homeland security civilian jobs. Male and female. 18-26. Manidtory 2 years.
I forgot the bill numbers. My little sister did a paper on it for her highschool government class. I'll stake my life and reputation that it's true, though. The bills have been in the works since early in 2003 and the schedual is to bring them into effect in 2005.

Method already in place

[tedshultz]

If the military want to get a bunch of computer specialists, they can just hire them. Drafts are usually only used to acquire cannon fodder because the people who get drafted are often the unrepresented class. It hardly seams fair to pay one CS student's way thought college with ROTC, and then hijack another grad's career without proper compensation.

I knew it!

[GeekZilla]

Well, I always suspected it. I am a member of the US Naval Reserve and about two years ago, the NAVRES asked all of it's members to fill out a "skills profile". This profile would be used to solicit qualified members and ask them to volunteer to fill temporary billets as they arose. The program was presented as a way to find the best service member for the task and to offer them the oppurtunity to take orders for that job. A lot of the billets that open up are from 6 weeks to 9 months.
I was always dubious of doing this, becuase if there were ever a "crisis" and they REALLY needed someone with my skills, I foresaw the "volunteer oppurtunity" becoming an "involuntary recall to active duty" in a heartbeat.
I doubt this decision is directly related, but now they have a massive database of skills that they can search through and draft from first.

Re:Freedom comes at a price

[Alan Cox]

You too can fight and die for .. the DMCA, 70 year copyright extensions, the RIAA, the MPAA, 1$ a gallon gas and the right to pollute the world... 8)

I was an Army linguist.

[gr3y]

And my unit spent most of its time in the motor pool, or in the field, digging in the dirt. Not once did I train to perform a mission as a linguist with my unit while I was in uniform, because officers can't lead soldiers who aren't in the field. It doesn't get them promoted, so they uniformly oppose it. Every bit of funding for every linguist mission was cut, and the mandatory eight hours of language maintenance required for all linguists was gradually reduced to no maintenance at all.

The only time I was actually useful was while on TDY.

Any assertion that the military needs people in these specialties is not true. They had them, indeed have them, and I can pick up the phone right now, call the RSDNCO of my former unit, and ask what they will be doing on Monday. I am confident that the answer will be: "motor pool".

This is something that has been brewing since before the Kennedy Report, and it still pisses me off, especially in light of all the back-pedalling from the FBI and military that they "don't have the resources". They did have them. Due to mismanagement and fucked-up priorities (primarily the OER system), they couldn't keep them. My re-enlistment counseling with my commanding officer (whom I respected a great deal) was, "well I can offer you the Army nurse program, or physician's assistant, but unless you want to become an officer, you won't be able to transfer out of your MOS because it's short".

During my time in the military, I think about one in three linguists re-enlisted, always for choice of duty station. I cannot count the number of linguists that disappeared, that training wasted, because they spent four (or more) years doing nothing. If they left the military under good terms, they should have been actively pursued by the FBI or NSA so that training wouldn't have been wasted. But it wasn't a priority until 9/11. Then, all those three-letter agencies suddenly realized that they'd better come up with effective damage control fast, so they settled on: "we don't have the resources."

It's a lie.

I am willing to bet you $1000 you are wrong.

[Nova Express]

Mark my words, the draft will be back.
If Bush is reelected then the draft will start Jan or Feb 2005, slow for the first few months and then when they are up to speed they'll start pulling large amounts of young men.

I am willing to wager you $1000 you are wrong, with the following guidelines:

1. I bet that by June 1, 2005, not a single U.S. citizen will have been drafted into the U.S. military by Selective Service conscription (i.e., National Guard call-up and the like doesn't count).
2. I am willing to write a check to you in the amount of $1000 (U.S. dollars only), if you will do the same for me, both of these to be placed in the custody of a mutually trustable third party. I suggest Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctrow or Eric Raymond (all of whom I know) as three possibilities of third parties sufficiently well-known to the Slashdot community to be stewards of the bet (and at least two of which lean politically to the left).
3. If by June 1, 2005, no draft has been instituted, the third party will give your check and my own to me.
4. If at any time before that, Congress, the White House, or the Selective Service administration actually reinstitutes (not just suggests or discusses reinstituting) the draft by actually calling up conscripts (news that must be verified on the front page of The Washington Post or The New York Times), then the third party will forward these checks to you.
5. If a major terrorist incident (defined as one causing 1000 or more civilian deaths) occurs on U.S. soil, the bet is off.

So, are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? Are you willing to wager cold, hard cash that your paranoid liberal view of the world is rooted in fact rather than delusion? I've even given you four months longer than you're "sure" the draft will be reinstated. Or are you all just talk?