Enlistment
ENLISTMENT
ENLISTMENT. Local defense in the colonial period was based on compulsory military service for all able-bodied males, but relied on volunteers for extended campaigns or assignments. During the early Republic, Americans viewed a large standing army as antithetical to their ideals of liberty and avoided instituting conscription as a method of recruitment. The early American military therefore developed a dual army tradition—a small core of regulars reinforced by local militia. In times of crisis, the militias would be supplemented by volunteers, who were enticed to enlist with promises of land grants, bounties, and other incentives. The success of the militia system (somewhat exaggerated at the time), aversion to conscription and a standing army, and the relative peace and prosperity between 1783 and southern secession in 1860 ensured the continuation of the citizen-soldier myth and the "expandable" army concept. By 1862, the manpower demands of modern, industrialized warfare forced Americans to overcome their objections to conscription, although exemptions and the hiring of substitutes were common.
As they had in the antebellum period, enlistments in the post–Civil War era continued to remain low due to insufferable military living conditions, lax training, and Americans' contemptuous attitudes toward professional military service. The nation also continued the pattern of rapid mobilization via conscription and activation of federal reserve and state-organized National Guard units during crisis, followed by rapid peacetime demobilization back to a minimal force of regulars.
In 1973, as a result of opposition to the Vietnam War, the conscription system's inherent social inequities, and economic retrenchment, the United States reduced military force levels, eliminated peacetime draft service, and created the All-Volunteer Force (AVF). Although it can be augmented by reserves and conscription, the AVF remains the foundation for U.S. armed forces and consists entirely of enlistees recruited to the service by incentives such as opportunity for adventure, occupational training, educational assistance, and financial bonuses.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Binkin, Martin. Who Will Fight the Next War?: The Changing Face of the American Military. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993.
Chambers, John W., II. To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America. New York: Free Press, 1987.
Coffman, Edward M. The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Fredland, J. Eric, Curtis Gilroy, Roger D. Little, and W. S. Sellman, eds. Professionals on the Front Line: Two Decades of the All-Volunteer Force. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1996.
Segal, David R. Recruiting for Uncle Sam: Citizenship and Military Manpower Policy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989.
Derek W.Frisby