Editor’s Note: This editorial initially stated that Democrat Representative Charles Rangel was a Republican. The error has been corrected.

Nobody is arguing that the Army has been in a tough spot as of late in terms of enrollment. But HR 2723, the recent proposal from Democrat Representative Charles Rangel which would require military service from all young persons, is quite possibly the worst way to alleviate the recruiting problems of Army officials.

The bill aims “to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young people in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.”

There is a lot to gain from service to your country, both for the nation and for the person serving. It can provide career preparation, a decent salary and educational bonuses. Serving instills pride and creates better citizens.

But mandatory conscription could also hurt our forces more than help them. Part of what makes our country’s military so effective is that it is comprised of professionals who take their jobs seriously and believe in their missions. Additionally, the logistics of flooding our military with more soldiers than it could handle is a nightmare. The Army’s recruiting goal stands at 80,000 a year for a reason; this is the number of soldiers the Army needs and is able to train.

Tossing millions of apathetic young people into the service just because we need a few thousand more is both an astonishing waste of resources and a threat to the soldiers we currently have in the field. Also, numerous surveys have revealed that seven out of 10 Americans oppose the reinstatement of the draft.

Perhaps the most important reason the U.S. Congress should ditch the idea of forced military service is because those in power appear not to know what to do with the soldiers they have already.

The mess in Iraq is a grim example of mismanaged military resources. If past conflicts have taught us anything, it is that when the U.S. government has unlimited military manpower, it will use it. The quickest route to turning the war on terror into the next Vietnam is to offer the government more soldiers to throw at more conflicts.

The mess of conscription is exemplary of an all-too-prevalent problem in the U.S. government: the inability to think through a plan before implementing it. The government is looking to future generations to solve the problems caused by this administration’s oversights, and in no way is this more clear than by the institution of a draft by congressmen who are too old to be drafted, with children who are too affluent to fight on the front lines.