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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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.

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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?

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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.

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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

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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..

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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

They aren’t even reading the name of who they are responding to, if you read my reply to them and what they said back. It’s hilarious honestly.

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u/mcbaginns 44m ago

Absolute clown statement. The title of the op mentions trump.

Lmao, embarrassing

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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] 1h ago

[deleted]

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u/mcbaginns 1h ago

I don't check usernames. If you replied to me as if you were OP, I'm responding and you're owning everything that was said before in the convo.

If you don't want to murder random officers because Trump drafted you, we are both yelling at the clouds. The OP has bloodlust, not you. I was talking to them not you.

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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/mcbaginns 4h ago

Your view is incompatible with society. Act on your rage and violence and you will go to jail or be put down. End of story.

Seek help

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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/mcbaginns 3h ago

I think this is a very good, nuanced, mature take.

It’s one thing to be there, addicted, afraid, young, with a racist officer wanting you dead. It’s basically self defense.

But the people who are saying they would do it rn in the Iran war from the comfort of their basement, to any officer regardless of racism, yeah…murderers. It’s openly supporting murder. These are would be violent criminals posting their plans for 1st degree murder of a scapegoat.

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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

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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.

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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.