I see this subject as two separate issues:
General preparedness of the American fighting public.
Specific deployment in times of conflict/war.
For small scale conflicts or wars, volunteer based armies are best. The reason is simple. People who volunteer are already motivated (financially, educationally, patriotically, etc.) and tend to produce higher quality troops for a proportionally small army.
For large scale wars/invasions, having a well trained population becomes increasingly important. Obviously, if a significant percentage of the population is needed to fight then training the entire country is a monumental task to undertake at the time of war. The training must be done in advance.
One question that remains is what is small-scale and what is large-scale. I'm not sure I have a ready answer for that as it would have to take in lots of factors.
I do have concerns about the general preparedness of the country, though. Mandatory service would definitely help there, but I wouldn't want that to take the place of our volunteer army.
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