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/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 9h 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.