came by the thousands from every state and every U. S. territory, but few
were from places of wealth and privilege.
THE DRAFT AND THE MAKING OF A
WORKING-CLA$$ MILITARY
The Selective Service System was the most important institutional mech-
anism in the creation of a working-class army. It directly inducted more
than 2 million men into the military, and just as important, the threat or
likelihood of the draft indirectly induced millions more to enlist. These
"draft-motivated" volunteers enlisted because they had already received
their induction notices or believed they soon would, and thus they enlisted
in order, they hoped, to have more choice as to the nature and location of
their service. Even studies conducted by the military suggest that as
many as half of the men who enlisted were motivated primarily by the
pressure of the draft (table 4). Draft pressure became the most important
cause of enlistments as the war lengthened.
The soldiers sent to Vietnam can be divided into three categories of
roughly equal size: one-third draftees, one-third draft-motivated volun-
teers, and one-third true volunteers. In the first years of the American
buildup most of the fighting was done by men who volunteered for military
service. That does not mean they volunteered to fight in Vietnam. Few
did. Even among West Point's class of 1966 only one-sixth volunteered for
service in Vietnam (though many more eventually ended up there). As the
war continued, the number of volunteers steadily declined. From 1966 to
1969 the percentage of draftees who died in the war doubled from 21 to 40
(table 5). Almost half of the army troops were draftees, and in combat
units the portion was commonly as high as two-thirds; late in the war it
was even higher. The overall number of draftees was lower because the
Marine Corps-the other service branch that did the bulk of fighting in
Vietnam-was ordinarily limited to volunteers (though it did draft about
20,000 men during the Vietnam War).34
The draft determined the social character of the armed forces by whom
it exempted from service as well as by whom it actually conscripted or
induced to enlist. Because the generation that came of age during the
1960s was so large, the Selective Service exempted far more men than it
drafted. From 1964 to 1973, 2.2 million men were drafted, 8.7 million
enlisted, and 16 million did not serve. Of course, the millions of exemptions
Table 4. Percentage of Draft-Motivated Enlistments
Enlistees
u.s. House Committee on Armed Services, 1966, 100038; 1970, 12638. Cited in
78.
38
54
5. American Draftees Killed in the Vietnam War
Officers
Total American
Deaths, All Services
41
60
Reservists
1,369
5,008
9,378
14,592
9,414
4,221
71
80
Draftees (Percent)
All Services
-
107.
16
21
34
34
40
43
Bureau of the Census, 1971,253; column 3 from U.S.
~ ~ 1971, 172. Cited in Useem, Conscription, Protest,
, a representative cross-section of draftees. However, this
Vietnam because
unti11971, troop withdrawals late in
Army
a manner designed to produce a military that
.A step in that direction
28
34
57
58
62
57
a socially and economically balanced military. Instead, it was
to a form of "human resource planning" designed to serve the
to attain.
(
geocities.com/yaoleechenb2)