The Nation: Rating the Volunteer Army

A Rand study says it's better than many believed

When the draft ended in June 1973,the new volunteer Army began attracting a long gray line of critics. In Congress and elsewhere, detractors of the changed Army maintained that it would not be able to meet the nation's defense manpower needs, that its quality would decline, its costs rise out of sight and, perhaps worst of all, it would turn into a mercenary force composed mainly of the black poor in search of good pay.

Last week the Rand Corp., in a study for the Pentagon, argued that the nation is far better off...