Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to get into the debate over the Vietnam service of the U.S. presidential candidates on Sunday but said if the United States ever went back to mandatory enlistment everybody should be "equally liable" for war service. With the Iraqi war causing greater casualties and extended deployments, legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Congress to revive the draft, which was ended in 1973 as the Vietnam War wound down and subsequently replaced by an all-volunteer army.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in the army:
In 1965, when Arnold was 18, he was summoned to join the Austrian army for 1 year, where he received his military tank operator training. The future Governor of California was offered the job, despite the fact that the Austrian army usually assigns tank operator jobs to persons over 21 years of age. For the first time, Arnold started taking meat daily in meals only in the army.
Arnold took part in the competition "Mr. Europe" at the junior level and won it; for the sake of competition, he went "AWOL" and then went to military prison for two month (according to other sources - for two weeks in a guardroom). Contrary to popular belief, this was not his debut; He debuted two years before in a less popular competition in Graz, where Arnold occupied second place.
As a consequence, the future Governor of California that was able to find a time and place for training even during his military service, even when for several weeks he had to live in field conditions. He prepared weights with materials at hand and stored them in the tank. However, as he confessed later, he was not an ideal soldier and sank his tank once.
While describing his service in the Army, Arnold in his autobiography, talks about how impatiently he waited for orders from officers to begin physical training and the main outcome of the army service was his substantial muscle mass growth.
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