A (Conscripted) Army of One

"One of the Pentagon's best arguments for rejecting the draft was that
it wanted to move away from this style of warfare, where whole divisions
of conscripts were thrown into the meat grinder of combat...But the
unfortunate truth is that today's Guard and reserve units are being
thrown into the fight in ways similar to conscript-based units of past
generations."

http://slate.com/id/2108357/

The author is jumping a little too far ahead in my opinion...the single
incident of the 343rd doesn't necessarily indicate that the reserves are
acting like draftees (though it's an interesting idea). To me it much
more likely indicates a chain of poor officers ... a captain giving
orders out of personal spite, and the majors/colonels above him being
such poor uncaring leaders that the soldiers felt alone with no-one to
go to. (disclosure: I was an army officer for a while too).