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I'm against the draft. I believe we should have a professional military; it might be smaller, but it would be more effective.

Maybe the answer to Selective Service is to start everyone off in the army and draft them for civilian life as needed.

New Yorkers should know that no one in the Administration, at the Department of Defense, or at the Selective Service System is advocating the reinstatement of the mandatory draft in any form.

I do not care whether you're a Democrat or you're a Republican or an independent. We must pull for the people who are wearing the uniform of the armed forces. These people weren't drafted. They enlisted, because they believe.

It's possible that in the future, women could be drafted not only into the military... but actually drafted into combat. I'm very uncomfortable with that.

With no draft, the only people who went to war were those who wanted to, or at least those who wanted to join the military.

Recruitment and retention are critical to sustain our Armed Forces with the best men and women willing to stand in the gap and make huge sacrifices to ensure our freedom.

It is the duty of our men to enroll themselves in the national services. We need all our manpower for defence. For the military and... we need a quarter of a million men.

We have an incredible national forest service, and we have an incredible child outreach program that the president has put together. I don't see anything wrong with national service for a minimum of two years. If we were to require that, we wouldn't need a draft.

One of the problems we currently have is there hasn't been in the population any serious engagement with the ethics of war because we have an all-volunteer army. I would think the return to the draft would be an intervention that would require discussion that might be more helpful in terms of our ability to limit war.