I like this amendment

[Angry Dragon]

"All acts of war should be put to a national vote. Anyone voting yes has to register as a volunteer for service in the United States Army."

—Proposed Amendment to US Constitution, not ratified, 1916

[HowHasItComeToThis]

1. I HAVE AN IDEA... LET'S NATIONALIZE OUR PRIVATIZED MILITARY

BRING BACK THE DRAFT

[jmowreader]

2. There's a reason we have a privatized military

The size of the military is set by Congress. The term is "FY endstrength"--the number of troops in uniform in the active forces, national-level reserves (the US Army Reserve, US Navy Reserve, US Air Force Reserve and US Marine Corps Reserve) and state-level reserves (the National Guard and Air National Guard). Endstrength is a bit like a game of Blackjack--you need to get as close to that number as you can without going over.

If the village idiot would have gone to Congress and told 'em the truth, which is that we needed to increase the military to Cold War manning levels to conduct two simultaneous wars, they wouldn't have rubber-stamped the Iraq invasion. (This is a different issue from Congress not rubber-stamping the invasion if he would have admitted he wanted to go to war on a hunch.) To actually fight the war, he moved as many people as he possibly could into the combat arms--basically, anyone who was fit enough to fight as infantry was sent to the infantry, which also explains why so many guys got killed over there, as shake-n-bake grunts get killed in greater numbers than guys who've been infantry all their lives.