Let me say it again.

Let me say it again.

We presently have an all-volunteer military. That makes me happy.

And for all the Reservists, like even those being deployed overseas to fight or demonstrate for our Country, thank you. The recent example of a Florida Air National Guard F-15 squadron comes to mind.

Now to man our active duty military we have two normal ways to do it. One is called “accessions”, like getting enough qualified people from our American population to join voluntarily.  In the Marine Corps, used as an example, around 30,000 Americans volunteer annually, and are accepted to enter boot camp. Most make it, but some don’t.

The other way we man our military is called “retention”, like getting enough more senior leaders in the right skills to “re-up” or switch to another skill, like sign an agreement to serve longer. In the Marine Corps that brings in around 20,000 people a year.  That’s big number.

The total adds up, in this Marine Corps example, to around 50,000 people a year just to maintain our Marine Corps on an annual basis. The entire Marine Corps in this example is around 200,000 Americans.

Now most of these 50,000 Americans in the Marine Corps are married, and have Families, too.

So if we, as an American Country, don’t want to pay for all this quality of life stuff, so be it. But in the same vein, don’t expect enough people to hang around to man all the things our military and National Defense demands and really needs to be done.

Now Plan B is to have our future politicians reinstitute a force able military draft just to defend our own Country.  That’s what is coming, in all likelihood.