Time.com
February 7, 2009America’s Last Draftee: ‘I’m A Relic’
By Mark Thompson, Washington
America’s generals love to brag about their all-volunteer Army. That’s
because they tend to overlook Jeffrey Mellinger. He donned his Army
uniform for the first time on April 18, 1972, about the time the Nixon
Administration was seeking "peace with honor" in Vietnam and The
Godfather was opening on the silver screen. Nearly 37 years later, he’s
still wearing Army green. Mellinger is, by all accounts, the last
active-duty draftee serving in the U.S. Army.
"I’m a relic," Mellinger concedes with a self-deprecating laugh. But the
last of the nearly 2 million men ordered to serve in the Vietnam-era
military before conscription ended in 1973 still impresses 19-year-old
soldiers. "Most of them are surprised I’m still breathing, because in
their minds I’m older than dirt," the fit 55-year-old says. "But they’re
even more surprised when they find out this dinosaur can still move
around pretty darn quick."
Mellinger was working as a 19-year-old drywall hanger in Eugene, Oregon,
when he came home to find a draft notice waiting for him. "I went down
to the draft board and asked them if this was really serious," he
recalls, "or if it was like an invitation." But it was an order, the
first of many Mellinger would obey. He started his military career as a
clerk in what was then called West Germany, and was looking forward
hanging up his uniform after two years of service. "I was dead-set on
getting out," he says. "We had a lot of racial problems, drug problems,
leadership problems." But his company commander talked him into
re-enlisting. The lure: the chance to join the Rangers, the elite
warrior corps that Mellinger came to love (his 3,700 parachute jumps add
up to more than 33 hours in freefall). Re-enlisting "was the best
decision of my career," Mellinger says.
The Army sent him all over the world, including tours in Japan and Iraq.
General David Petraeus, who served as Mellinger’s boss during the
draftee’s final three months in Iraq in 2007, calls him "a national
asset" who kept the top generals’ aware of the peaks and valleys in
battlefield morale. "We lost count of how many times his personal convoy
was hit," Petraeus says. "Yet he never stopped driving the roads,
walking patrols, and going on missions with our troopers." (Mellinger’s
33-month Iraq tour was punctuated by 27 roadside bombings, including two
that destroyed his vehicle, although he managed to escape injury.)
Mellinger now serves as the Command Sergeant Major, the senior enlisted
man in the Virginia headquarters of the Army Materiel Command, trying to
shrink what he calls the "flash-to-bang time" between recognizing what
soldiers need and getting it to them.
The son of a Marine, Mellinger had been turned down by both the Marines
and the Army when he sought to enlist. "I was not a perfect child," he
says. He finds it strange that the compulsory military that launched his
career no longer exists, but says the Army is better for it. "You get
people who want to do this work," he says of today’s nearly-all
volunteer force. "If you had a draft at any other business in the world,
you’d get people who maybe weren’t suited to be accountants or drivers
or mathematicians."
He doesn’t have much patience for those, like Rep. Charles Rangel,
D-N.Y., who want to bring back the draft to ensure that war’s burdens
are equally shared. "We’re doing just fine, thank you, with the
all-volunteer force," Mellinger says. "Until the time comes that we’re
in danger of losing our capabilities to do our missions, then we ought
to stick with what we have – there is no need for the draft."
Like many veterans of the Vietnam-era Army, he bridles at suggestions
that the draftee force was riddled with misfits and druggies. "We didn’t
run off to Canada," he says, taking a swipe at those who avoided the
draft by heading north. "While it makes great rhetoric to stand up and
say ‘We don’t want a draft Army because the draft Army was bad,’ the
facts don’t support it," Mellinger says. "Just because they didn’t run
down and sign up doesn’t make them less deserving of respect for their
contributions." There’s a sensitivity evident in being viewed as less of
a soldier for having been drafted. "I’m proud to be a soldier, and I’m
proud to be a draftee," he says. "I took the same oath that every other
enlistee who came in the Army – there wasn’t a different one for
draftees."
His proudest moments are watching those he trained climb the military
hierarchy themselves. "I can think of several soldiers who went on to
become command sergeants major who were privates when I was either their
squad leader or their drill sergeant," Mellinger says. But such memories
also trigger his lone regret. "I wish I were as smart as I thought I was
when I was moving into those duty positions."
Mellinger has told his wife, Kim, that this is his final Army posting,
meaning he’s likely to retire sometime next year. The couple has no
children, although Mellinger has three grown kids from a prior marriage.
The last draftee then plans to move to Alaska, where he spent much of
his career, and spend his days reading history and running with his two
Dobermans. "When I tell my wife it’s my last assignment, she just rolls
her eyes," he concedes. "This is my sixth ‘last assignment’."
