Despite Trump's alleged draft-dodging in his youth, the former president's acolytes are reportedly flirting with a return to requiring mandatory military service if he's re-elected.
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Christopher Miller, former acting defense secretary during the last two months of Trump's term—and, possibly, the next leader of the Pentagon—told the Washington Post this week that it should be “strongly considered,” calling it a “rite of passage” that would create a sense of “shared sacrifice” among young people.
“It reinforces the bonds of civility,” Miller reportedly said, adding, “why wouldn’t we give that a try?”
This is not the first time Miller has floated these plans: He also wrote about them for Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump 2.0, concocted by dozens of conservative groups and led by the Heritage Foundation. There, Miller floated making all public school students complete the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery—a standardized test developed by the Department of Defense to test young people's skills to match them with a military job—in order to “improve military recruiters' access to secondary schools.” (A spokesperson for the Heritage Foundation told the Washington Post that Project 2025 does not “speak for President Trump or his campaign, who alone set his agenda.”)
Miller told the Washington Post that the test could be used to shore up weaknesses in the military: “If we're going to prepare for a great-power competition, it's helpful to have a baseline understanding of the pool of potential military service members and their specific abilities prior,” he said.
Trump called the reporting “completely untrue” in a post on Truth Social. “In fact,” he wrote, “I never even thought of that idea.”