StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Hey,

So I was reading a book that my wife's uncle sent us, fundamentalist tripe about how "we're failing our children"-- not that I don't think a hell of a lot of parents are doing a shitty job these days-- and one of the points was that "in my generation we had the Army to teach us how to live" (paraphrased). The author is probably ~60s, 70s in age going off his photograph, and served in the Merchant Marine around the Korean War (IIRC).

I commented to my wife that I didn't think all that many men had actually been drafted; she responded that she thought most young men in the US had been.

So here's the question: about how many young men were drafted in the time period from WWII through Vietnam, from 1940 to 1973? Approximately what percentage of the male population of the US was this? Would it be safe to say that, for example, only one-quarter of male Americans actually served in the military, or was it more like one-third or a half?

I'm asking here mainly because I don't really know where to start checking it out beside Wikipedia, and I don't particularly want to refer that, so any sources you can provide would be quite helpful.

Thank you all for your time and any replies you can provide...

Induction statistics

It's a secondary source, but references Selective Service data.

In short, it's total bullshit. Only a small percentage of eglible men were ever drafted into the military via selective service.

Bah I was going to post that link. Anyway...During WW2 the government did draft every single white young man it could medically accept, this was not nearly the case for any later year. Something like 2 million draftees served in Vietnam while given a universal draft more then ten times that many could have been conscripted. Far more people volunteered for military service during this period, though I do believe for some years the Army ground forces in Vietnam were majority conscript. The infantry however could be as high as 90% conscripts in some units; and since the infantry took about 90% of all losses this ensured Vietnam was deeply and rightly remembered for its use of conscripts. This fact is very important. The military knew who it had conscripted, and when it came time to assign jobs everyone who volunteered got less dangerous jobs as much as possible by deliberate policy.

Anyone who thinks the draft is some great thing for teaching people how to live is just disconnected from reality with the whole folks were tougher back then meme. I suspect a lot of people claiming that don't even recall, even if they were alive for it, that the US government actually declared a state of limited emergency when it introduced the peacetime draft in 1940. That became an unlimited emergency in late 1941....It was dead the Nazis are going to overrun us if we don't mobilize right now serious. The shock of the sudden Fall of France might not have been on par with say September 11th to the US civilian population, but for our government leaders who were fully aware of the big picture it was far more serious. Once the US had enough atomic bombs to stop the Soviets you just could not justify the draft any longer, and you can see from the numbers above that after Korea and the surge of nukes the draft was already getting pretty low key prior to Vietnam.