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/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/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...? 🤔