Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/News/January 2016/Op-ed
It was somewhat more complicated than this. There are two types of conscientious objectors. While most object to service (and in World War II were conscripted into industrial jobs), a substantial number do not object to service, only to combat roles. During World War II, they served in a number of roles, but most went into the medical corps. During the Vietnam period, the Australian Army granted 733 exemption as conscientious objectors; another 142 were exempted from combat duties, and served in the medical corps. Believe it or not, you can still join the (all-volunteer) Army today as a conscientious objector.
The statement that "an all-volunteer force seems preferable on paper" is too sweeping. In what way? We have a long tradition tradition of volunteer service in English-speaking countries. The economics of the problem is that volunteer service works fine so long as numbers are a small part of the population. When the required numbers become greater, an attempt to continue running a volunteer army may become difficult and ultimately impractical. The Great War was unusually popular, and large formations could be built from volunteers. There are also issues that arise from having an Army socially separated from the general population. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with the first paragraph, I've heard plenty of talk about co's serving, just not in a role that requires physical combat. As for the statement in the second paragraph, it originally read "While it sounds good on paper to rely on an all volunteer force, there are times when this simply isn't possible" as opposed to the version shown here. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:09, 27 January 2016 (UTC)