# Is a military draft ever justified? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 9, 2026, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-military-draft-ever-justified/1033707 "2026-10-09T19:10:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2026, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-military-draft-ever-justified/1033707/1 "2026-10-09T19:10:06Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Multiple Shootings At Fort Hood](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-shootings-at-fort-hood/516472/336): > [@Multiple Shootings At Fort Hood](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-shootings-at-fort-hood/516472/335): > > (And BTW, Slovik was an idiot. He was so thoroughly convinced he’d only get jail time for his desertion that he refused multiple offers of clemency. He basically goaded his commanders and military judges into executing him.) > [@Multiple Shootings At Fort Hood](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-shootings-at-fort-hood/516472/336): > > You mean refused several offers to be sent back into the meatgrinder. “Tear up this note and we’ll let you go back to being shot at, which you were forced to do by a government that ripped you away from your life against your choice”. That isn’t an indicator of his idiocy, it is an indicator of the pure evil of drafted military slavery. In the linked thread, @Darren_Garrison characterizes the draft (specifically in WWII) as “the pure evil of drafted military slavery.” Is he right? Was the military draft in WWII “pure evil”? Stated another way: Was the draft in WWII morally justified? And more broadly, is a military draft ever justified? I don’t believe the draft in WWII was evil. I think WWII was morally justified for the U.S. to engage in, and I know of no way to fight a war of that magnitude without a military draft. This holds for the military draft in general, in my opinion. Indeed, I’m not sure our current system is much better, from a moral point of view, anyway. There hasn’t been a draft since Vietnam, of course. Instead, the U.S. military throws money at potential recruits instead. This tends to select for those who have fewer opportunities, whereas people of means and connections are not incentivized to join. There is therefore no reckoning that makes the population as a whole consider if all of the wars of choice we have engaged in since Vietnam are actually worth it. (As for Slovik, I characterized him as an idiot because he exchanged the chance of being killed or injured in combat with the certainty of execution for desertion. And yes, it was a certainty, which he was told repeatedly. No military in that type of combat situation can tolerate willful desertion and refusal to follow orders and still maintain a coherent fighting force. He was begging to be made an example of.) --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-military-draft-ever-justified/1033707)._