Robert,
These photographs were indeed striking. I saw in the faces of these young citizen-soldiers traces of vulnerability mixed with a strong sense of purpose and commitment. Obviously, these young women are well aware that they are engaged in something greater and more important than themselves.

Looking at these photographs, I was reminded of the fresh-faced college students with whom I regularly mingle while walking near a local college campus. In those faces you see none of the purpose and commitment that is so obvious in these Israeli soldiers. Yet America is engaged in a three-front war as military personnel and others are deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and worldwide counter-terror operations. Our military is being pushed to its limits. And soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are in their third and fourth tours.

Recently, I read a persuasive article by a U.S. Army soldier/scholar who argued that America cannot continue in this fashion. He recommended a return to the draft. We can only hope that young Americans will, if necessary, rise to the occasion as have their youthful counterparts in Israel.

David:

I doubt the country is willing to pay the price a full draft would cost (we're spending less of our GDP on defense now than during the Cklinton years), and I don't think the Army and Marines really need that many more troops.

Possibly a better policy would be to draft every college student a month after he earns his BA degree. Those who benefit most from our system should do more than just pay taxes, and college educated draftees would definately keep old Regular Army officers like me honest.

Not a prayer of passage though.

This issue of military service, obligation, duty, and feasibility is vital. Bear with me for a moment, but as a former conspiratorial Marxist I recall that breakdown of discipline in the ranks of the Russin army was part of what allowed the Bolsheviks to wear out the Czar's (Feb. 1917) then the Kerensky government (Oct.). Of course there's no American Bolshevik Party right now, but there are many anti-American elements throughout society that would loudly applaud, exploit, and exacerbate any crisis in this country's military. Think the Muslim sergeant who fragged an officer by grenade in Kuwait, or the Asian-American lieutenant who recently refused to deploy. These are the kind of incidents America's many-faced fifth column lust over in anticipation.

Hard-headed pre-emptive planning by the Pentagon would be required in order to soundly integrate the broadest cross-section of America's young adults into military culture and values. I can see much value to it, to the inductees as well as to the government, if the decision is properly taken.

[Back to the photographs] They're quite a set of images. Makes me wonder, "Why are these young women wearing that uniform?" Also, one of them was selected during the War of Tammuz as the Infidel Bloggers Alliance's "babe of the week."

I appreciate them as a counterpoint to one scene in a European movie "Voyages" (1999 or 2000) -- a soft, perhaps too soft, treatment of Jews in contemporary Europe and Israel. In one scene a very young woman -- she's made to appear as a girl, almost -- is patrolling a bus stop with a massive rifle, but she's dwarfed by the rifle. Rather sentimental and defeatist. These are the first "ordinary" images I've seen of women in the IDF since then. (Second actually, Kesher Talk ran a series of picture earlier this year, Jan. I think).

Karen and I saw another series of photos of female IDF soldiers. The pictures were second-rate and basically cheese-cake. We agreed that to run such immodest pictures goes against the spirit of this blog.

These photos are not meant to sexually excite. They concentrate on the inner lives of the young women. In their faces we recognize our children, our sisters--the holy daughters of Israel.

I am proud to publish these photos and make a wider audience aware of this young photograpehr's art.

MAJ Virgil Hilts,
Yes, I agree that a full-scale military draft wouldn't work. What I should have written was that there needs to be "a draft or something like it," something, in other words, that would address some of the issues that Jeremiah raised. But, beyond social policies, the photographs are indeed everything that Robert said they are.