If I want to gag, I just have to read the uninformed rantings of hacks who employ selective reading in an attempt to score political points. Let's Fisk Rumsfeld's remarks by examining them line by line.

If you think back to when we had the draft, people were brought in; they were paid some fraction of what they could make in the civilian manpower market because they were without choices.

During the Viet Nam era, a new Private E-1 was paid about $90 a month. They paid them so little because they didn't have to worry about getting people to volunteer for service, they could go and force people into uniform. Those people were "without choices", unless you consider "join the military or go to jail" a choice.

When the draft ended in 1973, military pay had to increase in order to attract volunteers. In just a couple years, it quadrupled. Today, an E-1's base pay is over $800 a month. From this source:

Pay: During basic training, recruits are usually in pay grade E-1 unless they have qualified for a higher grade at the time of enlistment. Promotions after this rank follow standards of length of service and achievement. Based on current pay scales, a typical trainee would earn about $854 a month, if single, and after four months, more than $1,400 with allowances if married. In addition to basic pay, many military people receive different nontaxable allowances. Allowances are the nontaxable monies authorized for subsistence (food), quarters (housing), clothing, travel and transportation, which help service members defray some of the expenses incurred as a result of military service.

Back in the 1980s, I heard some politicians (all Democrats) who advocated returning to the draft as a means to lower defense spending. They weren't interested in protecting the nation - they just wanted to cut the cost by being able to pay enlisted people less.

Back to Rumsfeld:

Big categories were exempted - people that were in college, people that were teaching, people that were married. It varied from time to time, but there were all kinds of exemptions.

This is also true. The draft has always had exemptions that allowed some people to avoid service. The first draft was during the Civil War (an major oxymoron, BTW). A man could literally buy his way out of service for a couple hundred dollars. That was a lot of money back then, so people of means could avoid the burden of service.

Later drafts during WWI and WWII disallowed the cash buyout but added exemptions for education (college wasn't cheap), "war critical" skills, and other areas where political connections could keep someone out of uniform. Other draft exemptions were added for fathers, "sole surviving sons", Contentious Objectors (many of the medics in WWII were COs - they wouldn't kill but they rendered invaluable and very brave service just the same), and the like. By the Viet Nam war, it wasn't all that hard for someone with money or connections to avoid service altogether. According to the 1970s book "Friendly Fire", only 3.2% of the eligible sons of Congressmen served in the military during the Viet Nam war. Notice it said served in the military, not in a combat.

And what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."

Try paying attention to what he actually said.

no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time

That is exactly accurate because almost all draftees got out after their term was up ("for the duration" during WWII and a 2 year term of service for Korea and Viet Nam).

Furthermore, he goes on to say,

because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."

This is also true. It took several months to train each of these draftees, then after 24 months, they were gone. Training is expensive, and it takes time to become skilled at anything, including being a soldier. Just as they were becoming proficient, they were gone except for the small percentage that decided to stay in.

Millions of draftees served in the US military in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. The overwhelming majority of them rendered honorable and valuable service. This isn't about draftees; it's about what a lousy idea the draft is, especially today. Besides being constitutionally questionable (the 13th Amendment prohibits involuntary servitude), it simply isn't necessary to meet the needs of today's high tech military.