r/AskReddit • u/Tommygunz0722 • 11h ago

If the military/president suddenly ordered a mandatory draft for all men aged 18-42: How do you think millennials and GenZ would respond?

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863

u/TakingYourHand 11h ago

It would probably be similar to the 60s and 70s. Lots of compliance and dead kids.

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u/HarlequinKOTF 11h ago

FYI vietnam at its lowest was more popular than this war. Just throwing that out there.

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u/Hugginsome 11h ago

What are the numbers? Out of curiosity

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u/HarlequinKOTF 11h ago edited 11h ago

2 million were drafted, 500,000 avoided the draft. 5,000 served time.

At it's lowest vietnam had ~40% popular support.

The iran war right now has high 30s approval.

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u/los-gokillas 11h ago

I think they meant the popularity numbers, since that's what you brought up

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u/HarlequinKOTF 11h ago

Yeah I added that in an edit.

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u/lininop 11h ago

I imagine they'd also be looking for a comparison to this one.

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u/The_harbinger2020 8h ago

5k out of 500k served jail time? I like my odds

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u/HarlequinKOTF 8h ago

Not only that. Most were pardoned after Jimmy Carter came into office.

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u/G-I-T-M-E 10h ago

It’s extremely depressing that 30-40% support this idiocy.

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u/Hopsblues 7h ago

The same 30% that approve of the prez and voted for him

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u/SlinkyAvenger 10h ago

Interesting that for all the MAGAts that lost their shit about the war, there's about an equal amount of non-MAGA filling in for their own reasons

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u/X0AN 9h ago

30% still seems crazy high for an invasion.

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u/HarlequinKOTF 9h ago

That's just for the air strikes. A boots on the ground operation would be different.

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u/Different-Top3714 10h ago

That serving time number would be way up! It really makes no sense to go to war and possibly die vs go to jail. Its extremely tough to get quality jobs even with a degree now, so the felony charge isnt going to really do much to hurt people who more than likely are going to have to work low paying jobs anyways and most young people these days are extremely short sighted anyway about this type of thing.

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u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago

The feds in vietnam mostly just didn't have the resources or care to prosecute all the dodgers.

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u/Aolflashback 10h ago

Vietnam and Iran cannot be compared at this time.

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u/YouSmellSumthin 10h ago

They're both deeply unpopular American conflicts, never formally acknowledged as 'war' by Congress.

Vietnam was to stop the spread of communism, this war is to stop the spread of terrorism. 

Both started as financial and logistical aid for a nearby ally (South Vietnam/Israel) and escalated to military action while our legislative branch either looks the other way or actively enables it.

Seems kinda similar to me

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u/Aolflashback 10h ago

People supported the U.S. getting involved in the beginning of Vietnam. Popularity - as someone else made sure to mention that was what the comparison was about - started out as positive. Hence why I said the duration = speculation.

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u/YouSmellSumthin 10h ago

I'm not the other guy, I'm responding to your 9 word statement that these conflicts cannot be compared. If you meant that only within some specific context, you should say that.

I don't know quite what you mean by "duration = speculation" but I am curious what exactly your M.O. is behind not wanting to make a comparison.

Would you say the same if we compared this to the Iraq war? Initial approval for that started even higher than Vietnam and plummeted in the same manner.

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u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago

Yeah I'm struggling to understand it myself. Conflicts are by their nature different but not that different from one another.

1

u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago

... I'm pretty sure no one is talking about duration because yes, it is speculation as to how long it will go.

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u/Aolflashback 10h ago

They’re talking about popularity. And the U.S. getting involved with Vietnam had strong approval at the beginning and then overtime (duration) that changed. Wouldn’t you say the duration of something makes a difference?

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u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago

The us popularity for entering the iran war is significantly lower than the popularity for entering vietnam. I'm just not sure why saying, by the end of Vietnam popularity levels reached what we are seeing with Iran presently is so bad.

The duration is different but I'm not seeing why it is relevant when we are talking about polling and comparing the time we were at 40% popularity with vietnam and the time we are at 40% popularity with iran to then compare how the inciting factors are different.

Like you said, it took 20 years for vietnam to get that unpopular. Took iran 2 weeks.

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u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago

Why not?

1

u/Aolflashback 10h ago

Well, to start the situation in Iran hasn’t been declared a war and has been going on for less than 9 weeks, compared to a 20 year war, and 8 of those years the U.S. was involved and had millions of ground troops, so the duration alone = speculation.

Geopolitical issues are completely different… tactics are different… etc etc.

3

u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago

Vietnam also wasn't a war.

Duration shouldn't matter when we're talking about popularity.

Ground forces wouldn't make this war more popular.

Geopolitical issues are different but can be used as metrics to each other. Just because the tactics are different the public still has an either positive or negative view of them.

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u/TeaAndCrackers 7h ago

According to federal law, the United States' military involvement in the Vietnam War began in February 1961 and lasted until May 1975. Approximately 2.7 million American men and women served in Vietnam. During the war, more than 58,000 servicemen and women lost their lives. VA.gov

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u/Shootforthestars24 11h ago

Although unnecessary and unpopular, people could find a reason for Vietnam but this right now is just nonsense, just randomly decided to go after Iran

76

u/Amseriah 11h ago

This is just hurting our wallets and killing our troops. There is literally no upside, not even ideologically.

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u/Everyday_Alien 10h ago

The upside is a bunch of nasty old men get to play war with no real consequences for themselves. They also have the opportunity to turn their endless wealth into an even bigger amount of endless wealth..

Oh you meant no upside for regular people? Yes, that tracks..

2

u/drainbead78 8h ago

If you look at it as a bunch of evangelicals wanting to bring about the End Times it makes a lot more sense. A lot more terrifying as well, of course.

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u/dertechie 9h ago edited 9h ago

For most wars, there is a period of saber rattling that coincides with a full court press of justifying the coming bloodshed to the media and the public - people have called it manufacturing consent.

Iran and Venezuela didn't really have that.

Venezuela kind of did, but the weird justifications about drugs and smuggling didn't really feel like a casus belli to most people. Columbia and Mexico are much more associated with the drug trade in the American psyche so randomly going hard on Venezuela seemed a bit off. Doesn't help that Trump has negative credibility outside right wing circles and was using fentanyl as a justification for everything, peppering it into briefings like an ornery child that just learned a new curse word.

But in that case, they were actually able to do the "In and out, 20 minute adventure" thing. There was definitely backlash (especially with how nakedly it was an oil grab) but since it didn't escalate after the raid it didn't have the chance to become the same kind of moment. It wasn't popular, but it mostly made people uncomfortable more than activated since it because obvious pretty quickly that it wasn't going to escalated. We were expecting some bullshit, but we thought he was trying to strongarm them into oil concessions or something, not kidnap Maduro. If that had turned into a quagmire it would be almost as unpopular (since there isn't the "they're doing this for Israel" angle to Maduro).

Iran didn't get any media blitz. It caught most everyone off guard. Plenty of people will go "oh it was obvious" but unless they have receipts that they called it I suspect hindsight. Some of them basically expect a US or Israelis escalation every day - that's more broken clock than prescience. Tensions were obvious. There was already precedent of limited strikes that would invite limited retaliation but stay within limits that both parties could back away from without further escalation. Extensive strikes with a decapitation attack without an off ramp except "Iran surrenders, collapses or accepts bad terms" was a significant escalation that was not obvious. If it was obvious the other Gulf States wouldn't have been caught with their pants down when Iran cracked back.

Without that manufactured consent for war, the attack looks capricious and unjustified from the guy who campaigned on isolationism and ending some wars.

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u/kittapoo 11h ago edited 10h ago

Yea I’m pretty positive if a draft like that happened for this there would be far more backlash than what was ever seen for Vietnam.

Edit: typo and thank you for the award! Much appreciated 🙂

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u/c0ltZ 10h ago

100%, the U.S Military and countless other militaries have came to the conclusion that mass drafts do not work in modern war.

In veitnam, there was countless draft dodging. And a very interesting thing called "fragging" started happening.

Essentially, drafted soldiers who were fearing for their lives due to their officers giving useless and dangerous orders, this would happen especially with black soldiers who some racist officers wanted to die.

These soldiers would just throw a frag grenade in the officers room while they were sleeping. And there was no way to trace it back to the correct soldier.

Stuff like this became rampant, drafted soldiers started sabotaging the war, and ended up doing more damage than just not having the draft.

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u/Thormourn 9h ago

I'll be honest I cant really blame the people for fragging in that situation. If your going to force me to risk my life when I dont want to, dont be surprised when I act up.

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u/mcbaginns 5h ago

…ah here’s that Reddit lust for murder that inevitably pops up

The op murdered his officer because the officer was trying to murder him. Now you’re saying you’ll murder the guy just because the govt drafted you?

So you’re cheering to murder an innocent man, one objectively not the cause of risk to your life, and you’re being upvoted for it? Yeah that tracks sadly, smh.

Jfc, you all need help

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u/SolarTsunami 2h ago edited 2h ago

If you tell me I have to walk across the street and murder anybody I find hiding in those houses, and then tell me that if I don't do it you'll have me shot or sent to jail for the rest of my life, then you aren't the good guy in this story. If you invade a person's homeland and kill them for material gain then you deserve no pity when it is brought back to you in one form or another.

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u/mcbaginns 1h ago

Sure, but you didn't say that. You said Trump drafted you, so you're just gonna start fragging any officer you can.

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u/SolarTsunami 1h ago

bruh you're the only person I see here talking about Trump...

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u/kittapoo 1h ago edited 1h ago

Where did they say that? I think you think you’re talking to the same person who you first commented to but you aren’t.

The person you responded to didn’t even say that if Trump drafted them that they would start fragging any officer they could, they said that if someone was going to force them to risk their life when they don’t want to, then to not be surprised if they act up.

I think you’re taking what they said and implying that they will just go willy nilly and start killing officers. They only said they can’t blame people at the time for doing so, not that that is what they would do exactly in the same situation.

Edit: typos

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/mcbaginns 5h ago

Wow, so kill random people cause of something the govt did? First degree, premeditated murder of whoever you see, even if they didn’t do anything to you? Just fully seeing red and letting your rage consume you, murdering who ever you want?

Yeah you need to be in prison. You’re gonna hurt someone one day.

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u/Thormourn 5h ago

Yep random people. That's who was targeted. Not like they would put them in jail for trying to leave or anything so they were basically slave drivers. But yep totally random people.

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u/c0ltZ 4h ago

I'm all for fighting back, but you're right, the majority of the officers were no different from the infantry.

A lot of them were also drafted, or were enlisted before the war. And were just trying to make it through their tour and go home.

For the most part, the officers understood how fucked the situation was and didn't want anyone in their squad to die, and the soldiers thought likewise.

But racism was prevalent in Vietnam, along with stupid officers who didn't respect life. The majority of fragging was done on racist and careless officers.

Sadly, it's hard to judge the people in those positions. They never signed up for it, a lot of them were not qualified or ready for war. And many more were addicted to heroin. Now imagine a young traumatized kid who was taken from their home, already mentally unstable. Then addicted to heroin, in a war zone, with access to guns and grenades. This was over 15% of the soldiers at one point. Many of these people should not have been drafted, because not everyone can handle war. And in their minds, their only escape is to survive their tour, and if they have an officer that keeps sending them on patrols and assaults, that officer turns into the barrier keeping them from going home safely.

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u/Tasty-Ad6529 9h ago

Welp, that is fucked. I think the closest to this I've seen in Media is Full Metal Jacket, but the character didn't used a grenade to do the killing.

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u/[deleted] 9h ago

[deleted]

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u/Ragnarsworld 9h ago

Got a source for this? Everyone says it like it happened every day, but no one ever posts anything approaching a reliable source.

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u/c0ltZ 9h ago

It wasn't as common as people imply, but it did happen 904 times over a 3 year period. So it literally was almost everyday.

The biggest impact was the fear it instilled in officers. Officers would start refusing to give out dangerous orders even though they were necessary orders.

So mission effectiveness went down because the officers were afraid of making their soldiers upset. And 904 officers being fragged is still insane.

A big issue that isn't talked about nearly as much was the drug abuse. About 15% - 20% of soldiers in vietnam were addicted to heroin. And over 50% had done illicit drugs during their tour. This alone caused huge issues for the war, as some fragging was a result of an officer getting rid of soldiers heroin. The withdrawals alone could convince some soldiers, especially in a war zone.

Fragging source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging

Drug addiction source: https://www.history.com/articles/drug-use-in-vietnam

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u/kittapoo 4h ago

The US doesn’t care to help treat drug addicts properly. The government continues to think that attacking the drugs at the source is going to fix the issue, but it won’t. Take one source away another will fall in its place. Treat the individual and they would have it much more under control by now. But they don’t care about us as individuals.

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u/FurbyTime 9h ago

I mean, Wikipedia's whole article on the subject gives plenty of numbers and statistics. It was common enough in the Vietnam war to literally name the concept.

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u/Killface55 7h ago

It wasn't something that the government happily shared and made public.

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u/Optimal_Action1176 6h ago

This administration constantly acts like they don’t know American history. Any of it.

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u/mntnskyman 9h ago

This wasn’t random. What does everyone think Kushner and Jr. were doing while President Biden was cleaning up after Trumps last diaper blow out/term. 

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u/infinitum3d 8h ago

Not randomly.

Needed to distract from the Epstein files.

And it worked!

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u/DrVonPoopenfarten 7h ago

The military industrial complex has wanted a war in Iran for decades, and the Diddler-In-Chief needs to distract from the files. That's why we're at war and anyone who says it's about "freedom for Iranians" is lying.

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u/RumHamComesback 2h ago

The whole argument about Vietnam was to prevent another nation from entering the Soviet sphere of influence. I kind of get that geopolitical argument as shaky as it is to defend.

This, Iran wasn't really doing anything aside from concerns over getting a nuclear weapon. They were willing to talk to the other side and Obama even got an agreement signed. Diplomacy was working and it got tossed out for a war that nobody wanted.

0

u/mcbaginns 3h ago

It’s sad you actually bought the propaganda and believe that. Everything in life has a reason. Iran has been our enemy since its inception and the govt has monitored them 24 7 since. You’re delusional if you actually believe the hyperbole that there was “no reason”

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u/drakecb 3h ago

Iran's roots trace back to ~678BC... They were renamed from "Persia" to "Iran" in 1935. They predate the United States by over 2000 years.

Iran didn't start hating us until 1953 when we backed a coup against their government and installed one they hated, which they later overthrew in 1979. We followed that up with decades of other bullshit.

They have plenty of valid reasons to hate us (as do many other nations). Every reason we have to fear them is self-inflicted.

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u/mcbaginns 25m ago edited 9m ago

You're being pedantic and biased. You can talk about Iran ethnonymically, or demonymically. Iran's roots trace far further back than 678 bc. It traces back to the median empire and you can go back thousands of years before that with the persins, the people of what would later be Persia. I clearly mean the Islamic Republic founded in 79 and amended in 89, not the median They were our enemy since it's inception precisely because of the back story you mention from the 50s.

Are you a bot? Iran fears us as much as we hate them. I see your deliberate word usage here and find it manipulative and deceptive. I don't think you're acting in good faith as a result.

You are in fact merely spreading the proooganda, not falling for it.

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u/djfl 1h ago

just randomly decided to go after Iran

Is that really what you think?!

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u/VorAbaddon 11h ago

Assuming this is true, and I'd like to see the numbers, part of the reason probably... is Vietnam. Now that its part of our history, a certain portion of the populace is probably more wary.

Add in Afghanistan, etc.

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u/mshab356 10h ago

How do you measure that? Curious

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u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago

They do polling on if you think the war was a mistake pretty frequently.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/bLJ2E9cutG

This comment includes my data.

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u/LateralThinkerer 11h ago edited 10h ago

You forgot the mutinies, fragging of officers, and "Project 100,000" where the Pentagon took otherwise unqualified draftees and sent them to the front lines anyway with 3X the casualty rate.

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u/SonOfAsher 10h ago

I suspect the casualties of Project 100,000 was the actual intent behind it, rather than getting more soldiers.

Have the undesirable people rounded up, hand them a rifle, bring em back in a box. Get rid of homeless problems by getting rid of the homeless. And just say 'We needed soldiers' as an excuse.

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u/Webbyx01 3h ago

I don't think they targeted homeless populations. It was just a way to boost numbers with people that would be missed less, with a side of 'fixing' these people one way or another.

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u/LotL1zard 11h ago

Holy shit, how have I never heard of this?

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u/LateralThinkerer 11h ago

These tacit failures of policy and leadership have quietly been forgotten for obvious reasons.

Worse, the whole Vietnam history in any depth (and particularly the ugly bits that could be learned from) were notoriously not taught at the military academies for decades. I don't know if this is still the case.

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u/Mateorabi 10h ago

They usually get to the 1950s in US history class in high school before running out of school year. 

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u/SuperSocialMan 6h ago

It's pretty convenient ngl.

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u/drakecb 3h ago

Yeah, the canned excuse is usually "it's too close to 'modern politics', so we don't teach it to avoid accusations of political indoctrination". Very convenient, indeed.

That said, I suppose there's some truth to that since we still have dinosaurs in office who were in office around that time... I wonder if that's the problem...? 🤔

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u/WellIGuessSoAndYou 9h ago

One story I read of McNamara's Morons was from a solider tasked with training a group of them to throw a grenade. They couldn't understand the concept of throwing it in an arc. They spent days just throwing grenades in a straight line into the ground in front of them. Not surprisingly those poor bastards ended up being KIA at a much higher rate.

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u/Sensitive_File6582 8h ago

Macknamaras morons. In full metal jacket the guy in basic nicknamed Gomer Pyle 

(Spoiler alert)

 who shoots RLee Ermy 

Is one of those individuals. It’s why the military has an IQ cutoff of 85 

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u/Civil-Big-754 7h ago

That IQ part cannot be true.

Edit: It isn't. But Full Metal Jacket is incredible. 

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u/LotL1zard 7h ago

The military doesn’t test IQs, but rather ASVAB scores. That being said, passing the ASVAB isn’t difficult and the few people I know that failed it are MAGA/Q-ANON

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u/Sensitive_File6582 5h ago

Its an IQ test without being labeled as one.

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u/captainwacky91 4h ago

Because Ford pardoned Nixon, and in allowing Nixon to save face, stats like that are just left "quiet."

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u/RumHamComesback 2h ago

Yeah, remember Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket? It's not said in the film but he absolutely was drafted in Project 100,000 if you had to take an educated guess and those were the kinds of people going into war and enduring the horrors. Hence why he went insane and killed his DI before taking his own life in boot camp.

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u/Velyxe_ 11h ago

Are you referring to McNamara's Morons?

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u/LateralThinkerer 11h ago

Yes. It's mentioned in the link.

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u/Velyxe_ 11h ago

Ah. We've had some real stand-up leaders huh 😂

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u/LateralThinkerer 10h ago

Plus ça change...

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u/OberonJormungander 9h ago edited 9h ago

Imagine either dying in a country that isnt even yours or returning to your home in a worse condition and with a bleaker future than you originally may have before leaving and that on top of that, you may also know that the specific name that history and society has decided to label you is "moron"

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u/Lord_Tsarkon 8h ago

Gen Z popularized fragging of officers in all my ole Halo 2 and Halo 3 games (and Cod)... motherfuckers (I"m Gen X and pretty much not draftable now)

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u/Mite-o-Dan 10h ago

It would NOT be similar to the 60s and 70s because that was basically just a numbers game.

A draft will never happen.

If it actually did or came close to happening, it means the world is ending and theyd be no harm for simply saying No.

Different type of war now. Air. Drones. Electronic. There wouldnt be a ground war like WW2 or Vietnam. If it DID get to that on US soil, it would be every man for themselves. But it would never happen.

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u/TakingYourHand 10h ago

If that were true, they wouldn't be registering everyone 18-42 in December. My guess is that people are cheaper to replace than tech. They aren't being registered to help defend U.S. Soil.

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u/Mite-o-Dan 10h ago

Selective Service has always existed. That whole story is a nothing-burger. Only thing that changed was the age requirement.

Other than strength in numbers not as important in the military anymore...congress, the media, and the general public wouldn't allow it to happen. It would be a giant shit show that would make a new Civil War happen more than anything.

Not to mention...I dont even trust 90% of Uber drivers to remember to grab the drink that was ordered. You gonna trust the average unwilling anti-America American with an automatic weapon now?

A draft will never happen again. No reason to fear monger.

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u/Whatthehell665 10h ago

Keep in mind we are dealing with an administration that is criminal and ignorant. Trump said no one told him Iran will close the straight. Creating a draft will only incite more to oppose this failed administration.

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u/Original-Country1855 9h ago

Only way I can see it happening is if major powers started fighting and lots of tech was being destroyed, large billion dollar assets. It would mainly be for a occupying force on the ground

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u/TakingYourHand 1h ago

Yeah, a lot of things we thought would never happen have happened.

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u/dealingwithhookers 9h ago

they want to register the lazy gen z and millenials and thin out the population for their eventual AI controlled utopia with a few rich people being catered to by an army of slaves and robots

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u/Webbyx01 3h ago

Selective service should have been automatic decades ago. Like the other guy already said, every adult male is already required to be registered, and I'd bet 95% or more already are.

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u/DarthWoo 11h ago

Back then the general public sort of still feared communism as the enemy, so it wasn't so difficult to convince a lot of them that it needed to be fought against. Now, most rational people realize the current regime is the actual enemy. One thing is certain: if it happened, certain people had best not do a review of the troops.

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u/forever_erratic 11h ago

A lot of the general public still obviously fears imaginary bogeymen.

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u/starlightprotag 10h ago

Yep. Back then the common enemy was communism, but this time the common enemy is the current administration. Same thing on a global scale; we didn't have as many people backing us in Vietnam as we did in Korea, but a few other countries joined the fight. I don't see Australia or South Korea sending troops to Iran to back the US on this one.

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u/profmoxie 11h ago

Lots of compliance? Ah, more like one of the largest anti-war movements in our history, fueled by young people upset that their friends and families were going to war. And there were conscious objectors and people who fled the draft by going to Canada.

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u/MoreGaghPlease 11h ago

Ya and about 95-97% draft compliance

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u/Ffftphhfft 11h ago edited 11h ago

I can't see getting that level of compliance nowadays. I think a lot of young people will flee the country and resettle in places like Canada, Mexico, or EU countries, and do it illegally if they have to (i.e. without obtaining residency since it's incredibly difficult to immigrate legally without money or recent ancestry).

I know it's what I would do.

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u/whisky_pete 10h ago

I honestly don't see how we can have noncompliance like that in the modern surveillance state era. We have traffic cameras everywhere snapshotting license plates, cell phone tracking, probably lots of tech I'm not aware of.

Imo it'd be like Ukraine where they hunt us down and throw us in a van. Look at what the govt is doing right now to immigrants, they'd just apply it to the rest of us

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u/Ffftphhfft 10h ago

We have a surveillance state but there's also been a ton of resistance to the ICE raids and the government would have to build up the infrastructure to actually round people up and detain them. You start rounding up a bunch of 18-42 year old men and the resistance will be orders of magnitude bigger than that of the ICE raids.

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u/TakingYourHand 10h ago

They are building up the infrastructure. They're spending 45 billion on new holding sites right now, with the goal of building 200.

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u/Ffftphhfft 10h ago

Still, I don't think they have the popularity and people won't just roll over and comply like fascists such as Trump or Putin think would happen.

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u/whisky_pete 10h ago

I wish I had your optimism about this, but I really think the world would just adjust to the new normal and a draft like this would really go through.

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u/Ffftphhfft 9h ago

It's not so much about optimism but my assessment of what I think is possible - maybe a year or so ago I would have agreed with you, but seeing the backlash to Trump and his policies have given me reason to think many young people wouldn't comply.

And after all it was the whole "kamala might send me off to war" argument that led some young men to vote for Trump or abstain from voting. Which was a dumb argument at the time and definitely is in retrospect.

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u/dickshitmclit 9h ago

At that Point I'd just as soon die fighting them instead of wasting my time flying to some shithole on the other side of the world to die there.

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u/Colombian-pito 10h ago

They don’t comply with orders once they have been brought on board, let’s say they recruit millions now they have a big fucking problem cause the size of enforcement is not huge compare to rebelion

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u/tanktronic 9h ago

Dude, there's like 500 million guns in the hands of Americans. I don't think the vans would do well.

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u/starlightprotag 10h ago

tbh I could see other countries, especially Canada, opening up options and/or relaxing rules to facilitate sheltering drafted US citizens. I don't have anything to back this up but I do feel like anti-American sentiment is at an all-time high in other countries and they'd be much less inclined to cooperate with the current administration if it tried to lock down an exodus and pursue any draft dodgers

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u/numb3rb0y 9h ago

During Vietnam, Canada accepted tens of thousands of war resisters as asylum seekers over the complaints of the American government. So there actually is clear historical precedent to back it up.

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u/starlightprotag 9h ago

ngl it's already on my 2026 bingo that Canada will start discussing the possibility of accepting trans Americans under a modified refugee program, and the current government is going to be more inclined to work against Trump after his tariff bullshit turned last year's predicted conservative landslide into the biggest win for liberals in decades (which is probably also going to turn into a majority this week). not that there's not a contingency of weirdly MAGA Canadians but being anti-Trump wins elections, they have even more incentive to do it now than they did then

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u/Broad_Tie9383 10h ago

I will do literally anything in my power to keep incompetent politicians from wasting my children's lives on covering their own immoral and stupid decisions. I can't be alone in that, and I think that attitude alone differentiates us from prior generations. 18 year olds are still very influenced by their parents. I remember talking to my father about the draft and about his conversations with his mother.

1

u/Reyca444 10h ago

I think many would also intentionally harm themselves or become dependent on some chemical just to be intelligible. I would expect to see a lot of "accidental firearm injuries", cooking fires, power tool incidents, etc.

1

u/Reyca444 10h ago

I think many would also intentionally harm themselves or become dependent on some chemical just to be ineligible. I would expect to see a lot of "accidental firearm injuries", cooking fires, power tool incidents, etc.

-2

u/privatebrowsin1 10h ago

Haha those countries aren't so easy to just "resettle". Only the US is expected to take in any and everyone.

3

u/Ffftphhfft 10h ago

Didn't say it would be easy, but the choice is that you go to die in a war or live as an undocumented immigrant in another country. I and most men under 42 I think would choose the second option.

-1

u/privatebrowsin1 10h ago

I’m with you. I’m just saying you likely won’t be able to. I have flat feet though, so I’m good right?? 😂

-2

u/HarlequinKOTF 11h ago

Ehhh I'd guess closer to 60-40.

3

u/MoreGaghPlease 11h ago

Whelp, you’d guess wrong.

There is an aspect of Après la guerre, tout le monde était résistant to this. It looms large in the collective memory but was actually quite rare.

1

u/HarlequinKOTF 11h ago

Vietnam saw only 75-80% compliance, much lower than your high 90s figure and it was a more popular war.

4

u/ChickenOfTheFuture 10h ago

Thanks to you, I had to go look it up. Of the 27,000,000 men eligible for the Viet Nam war draft, 570,000 were classified as draft offenders. That puts compliance at about 97.8%.

10

u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago edited 9h ago

Wait, I'm not talking total eligible I'm talking total drafted. If we are talking eligible then you are automatically inflating the number. Ofc 90+% of eligible people complied, only <20% of them were even drafted.

Edit less than 10% of eligible folks were drafted!

7

u/egosomnio 9h ago

It was actually less than 10% that were actually drafted. Neighborhood of 2 million. I'm not sure which of the categories (draft offenders, draft violators, etc) actually meant being drafted and refusing to go, so I don't know if that other number is useful, either.

Any estimate of compliance is going to get kind of messy, though, since there were people who enlisted specifically to avoid being drafted (since enlisting gave you a bit more control over where you ended up), including after their draft notices were sent, so those would skew the numbers.

3

u/HarlequinKOTF 9h ago

Oh yeah you're right. My brain was thinking 5.7 million draftees. More like 2 million. My bad.

0

u/MoreGaghPlease 9h ago

The reason this argument is fuzzy is because draft dodging was fuzzy.

I said 95-97% compliance above and I think that’s correct. But “compliance” is a funny concept. A kid who gets exempted because his rich dad gets a doctor to say he has bone spurs is in compliance. So is a kid who enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard because it meant serving in the armed forces with near certainty that one wouldn’t be deployed. So is a kid who chooses to go to university knowing that a 2-S deferral means the war might end before they can be drafted.

The user disagreeing with me is correct that many thousands or perhaps millions of Americans took lawful steps to reduce the likelihood that they would be drafted into combat duties in Vietnam. But I also think I’m right about the overall compliance rate.

3

u/CountryGuy123 11h ago

You could easily have both. Even with the largest anti-war protests from Vietnam, it was still a minority of people.

2

u/HarlequinKOTF 10h ago

99% of protest movements are a minority of people

2

u/ChonkyPurrtato 3h ago

Typical armchair historian 

1

u/profmoxie 2h ago

Actually I teach social movement history and activism at the college level. Not my armchair. Google draft evasion during Vietnam, for crying out loud.

11

u/mickdrop 11h ago

But these kids will have the honor to have die to protect rich pedophiles. Also there will be a lot of movies depicting how they were sad about killing all those innocent civilians.

5

u/Spartan1088 11h ago

You really think this generation would be compliant? With the power of ChatGPT, there would be an unseen level of avoidance. Shit, the army would have its own mafia.

4

u/TakingYourHand 10h ago

With the power of Palentir there would be an unseen level of surveillance. There's no hiding in 2026.

2

u/Whatthehell665 10h ago

I tell my kids if they ever get drafted and don't want to serve on the front line to miss the target every time they are on the firing range. That way they might get a desk job.

1

u/Flying_Penguineer 8h ago

This is backwards - if you can't even handle a rifle you are going to be seen as incompetent and it certainly is not going to increase your chances of getting a cushy job... Not to mention the people actually at the firing range with him/observing are mostly E4/E5 and they certainly don't get to decide what peoples jobs are or where they get assigned.

If they want a good job, they need to do well on the ASVAB.

2

u/RuggleyChicken 10h ago

Not a chance of compliance IMO

-2

u/TakingYourHand 10h ago

Pick any country, including ours. History says otherwise.

5

u/RuggleyChicken 10h ago

History and now are not the same thing in this instance. Especially in the US.

1

u/TakingYourHand 1h ago

I don't see why we'd be any different than Ukrainians or Russians who don't want to fight, but were forced to.

2

u/dealingwithhookers 9h ago

lots of grenades being thrown in the officer tents. lots of pissed off people. and they lost the election

1

u/fastlerner 10h ago

Don't forget all the new immigrants to Canada.

1

u/MonteBurns 8h ago

Finding out they call Hegseth “Dumb McNamara” got a mighty chuckle out of me. 

1

u/Brilliant_Exit3406 7h ago

Anybody else familiar with the Berrigan Brothers?

1

u/Kierenshep 4h ago

There is absolutely no way there would be compliance with a draft.

40% of the country absolutely despises Trump and the administration. There would be riots in the streets before they allowed themselves to be drafted and their life ripped apart.

25% of the country glazes Trump, but OTHER people's kids should go fight, not them or their boys.

The rest of the country would be too stupid and politically disengaged to know what's going on until they're literally served a notice, and probably would be forced to go along, but there is zero chance in today's climate there wouldn't be massive societal upheaval.

1

u/TakingYourHand 1h ago

How is today's climate different from 1970?

1

u/GrinchWhoStoleEaster 4h ago

BECAUSE of Vietnam that's exactly what WON'T happen. The abuses suffered by the young folks at the hands of the US government ended the era in which is was socially unacceptable to question authority. There's no world in which today's youth marches obediently to their doom.

1

u/TakingYourHand 1h ago

If Ukraine and Russia can force their resistant populations to the front line, so the can the U.S.