Now that the hype over the movie "Saving Private Ryan" has cooled, it's time to reflect on the men who stormed the shores in Europe and the Pacific during World War II, and the military draft, which ended 25 years ago.

The draft's "Greetings" letter started in 1940 and called 93 percent of the 10.5 million men who served during World War II. The draft, the bugle call with origins dating to the citizen-soldier militia of the American Revolution, tore millions of men from civilian life during the wars in Korea and Vietnam. It died in 1973 when President Nixon, with a stroke of the pen, ended the long-held ideal of conscription as a civic duty held in high esteem.

While "Saving Private Ryan" is brutally vivid in representing the sacrifice of those conscripted warriors, historian Stephen E. Ambrose's book "Citizen Soldiers" probably comes closer to giving a full picture of the young men who fought and died during the assault of the Normandy beaches.

In his moving account, Ambrose makes the point that, with all the planning, the "one thing that mattered above all others was human. America had the numbers of men and could produce the weapons for a mass army, and transport it to Europe, no question about it. But could she provide the leaders that an eight-million-man army required - the leaders at the people level, primarily captains, lieutenants and sergeants?"

The answer, of course, was yes, and most lined up for induction without protest. The young officers and non-commissioned leaders in this hastily marshaled citizen army were, by and large, also nonprofessional, men who came from the conscripted ranks.

Now we have a professional, but dramatically smaller, all-volunteer army that is considered by many to be the best in the world, better educated since 1973 and more diverse in gender and race.

These volunteers are as patriotic as those who were drafted and served in past wars. They are well trained, well equipped and focused on their mission. They are the steady core who have acquitted themselves well, with augmentation by part-time warrior-reservists, as in the Persian Gulf war and the tedious peacekeeping roles in Bosnia and other squalid and dangerous places.

Whatever the reason for enlisting in a professional army today - a steady job, an income with educational benefits, travel, adventure - some scholars continue to wonder whether the draft fostered good citizenship and patriotism.

This debate is reflected in a recent headline: "Socially and Politically, Nation Feels the Absence of a Draft."

The story, however, is more complex than the headline, and emotions can run deep in assessing the impact of the draft on American society. While many of the declining number of old soldiers, many of them draftees from the 1940s and 1950s, spin tales of their induction and service days and belong to patriotic veterans organizations, newer veterans, many embittered by the Vietnam experience, shy away from public discourse.

There's no doubt that the draft was a social force, which many consider positive. I was a product of ROTC, but over the course of my active and reserve military career, I commanded or was associated with many who had been drafted. We didn't sit around discussing the philosophy of citizen service to the nation, but I heard little griping about the circumstances that brought these people into the military. There seemed to be acceptance - some of it grudging, to be sure - that this was one of life's blips on the screen.

Draftees were part of a rich mixture of men from all segments of American life, a blend of diverse backgrounds in terms of race, economic conditions and education. High school dropouts and college graduates from rural areas, cities and all walks of society went through the frightful rigors of basic training together.

Some analysts say this experience and subsequent service, during which many learned skills that carried over into civilian life, forged a bond of shared pride and discipline that tempered class lines and created a stronger sense of responsibility to society. Today, fewer than 10 percent of the general population are military veterans, compared with slightly more than 13 percent in 1973.

Analysts are conflicted about the political impact of the demise of the draft and tend to make evaluations in general terms.

Some point out that only 35 percent of Congress members today have worn military uniforms because there has been no draft for a quarter-century and no compelling reason to volunteer for enlistment or officer training. Therefore, it's reasoned, they lack the direct appreciation of what it means to be a soldier, particularly when considering the military budget and the projected needs of the armed services. (In 1973, 77 percent of the members of Congress had served.)

Others say there's little to the lack of military service by politicians and policy-makers - the president who is commander in chief and his Secretary of Defense among them. Lawmakers, after all, have to deal with many matters outside their direct knowledge or job experience. You don't have to be an educator to serve on an education committee, or be a farmer to serve on an agriculture committee.

Besides, the Congress still has military veterans who can take up the cause when necessary. Recently, for instance, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were upbraided during contentious exchanges before the Senate Armed Services Committee over readiness matters. It was Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and a decorated former naval officer and prisoner of war in Vietnam, who led the charge that angered the chiefs.

The hostile antiwar protests produced by the Vietnam war led President Nixon to terminate the draft in July 1973, a draft that was far from universal and, in fact, was limited to the losers of a crap-shoot lottery.

Nixon hoped that his action would help quell the increasingly violent unrest at home and, as quoted by Andrew J. Bacevich, executive director of the Foreign Policy Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, "demonstrate to the world the responsiveness of republican government."

"It did nothing of the kind," says Bacevich, writing in the Wilson Quarterly. "Matching the temper of the times, the president's motives for reverting to an all-volunteer military were devious and cynical. For Nixon, terminating the draft had little to do with national security, still less with democratic politics. It was merely a matter of tactics. By lifting from student protesters the threat of being compelled to fight in a war they hated, he hoped to bring quiet to U.S. campuses and thus gain more time to extricate the United States from Vietnam with a modicum of national dignity."

Whatever the motives, Nixon's action might have killed the draft forever, given the high state of our military preparedness and the relative peace we enjoy. Military leaders are satisfied that the all-volunteer force of regular soldiers, supported by a better prepared and more professional reserve component, is enough. In any event, there's little if any public support today for resurrecting a peacetime draft. To most of the public, it has become an abstract concept.

State militias and George Washington's small but effective Continental Army of regulars started drafting men in 1776. Later, the Founding Fathers wanted little to do with a "standing army" of regulars, preferring instead a loose confederation of state militia units, requiring all free, able-bodied, white male citizens to enroll as part-time soldiers.

The War of 1812 prompted vigorous debate about conscription as citizen obligation, as did the Civil War, but both the North and the South relied on the draft to round out their ranks of volunteers. During World War I, more than 70 percent of the fighting force consisted of conscripts, but after the war, military policy reverted to establishing a small army of regulars bolstered by a militia, now called the National Guard.

Conscription into the ranks has been a part of military policy since the founding of the nation, but not without controversy. During the Civil War, while volunteers made up the bulk of both armies, the Union and the Confederacy allowed draftees to hire substitutes to serve for them. Later draft boards stirred resentment by creating numerous deferments and exemptions to allow some men to avoid military service.

The debate over the draft is largely couched in historic, nostalgic and academic terms. Few seriously consider reviving the draft, but the concept will be kept alive by that debate. According to a recent poll, for example, a majority of citizens say women and gays should be included if the draft is revived.

And if the need arises, selective service remains in place with a modest budget and fewer than 200 employees. All 18-year-old men are required to register for a possible call if the president and Congress declare a national emergency.

Vietnam era military figures

Draft age ... ... ... 26,800,000

Draftees .... ... ... 2,215,000

Volunteers .. ... ... 8,720,000

Never served .... ... 15,980,000

Apparent dodgers .... 570,000

Accused dodgers ..... 209,517

Convicted dodgers ... 8,750

Source: Vietnam War Almanac, by Harry G. Summers Jr.

Laird B. Anderson, a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel, is professor emeritus of communication at American University in Washington

Pub Date: 10/04/98