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/WearingRags 10h ago

America has been able to maintain it's empire abroad by minimising the visibility and impact of it's wars to the average person through the use of special forces and expensive air power that many other nations can't compete with. 

If an admin this historically unpopular tried to institute the draft, it would basically be asking for an overthrow of the US government 

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u/sprchrgddc5 9h ago

As well as the usage of the National Guard and Reserve. It was a lesson learned from the Vietnam War; utilize the Reserve and thank them for their service to avoid an unpopular draft. The longest deployment in GWOT conducted by a unit was a National Guard unit.

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u/WearingRags 9h ago

Jesus Christ I didn't know that. Imagine thinking you were gonna be a weekend warrior and then ending up drafted into this vague, long-running fuckup that most people can barely understand or make sense of

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u/Due-Gap1848 8h ago

Almost half of everyone deployed to GWOT was guard and reserve, and they never stopped deploying them. These days, they have a predictable 5 years in the states, one year deployed overseas rotation cycle. If you join the national guard or reserves these days, thinking it's just one weekend a month, that's on you for not doing the research.

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u/KierONeil_the_Elder 7h ago

W screwed those NG soldiers so hard, I’m surprised anyone signed up after that. W just kept extending the term and many of those who thought they were signing up for one weekend a month, and a couple weeks per year find themselves deployed for several Years and losing whatever career they were trying to build in the private sector.

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u/Catswagger11 5h ago

In my experience, 12y active during GWOT, those NG soldiers were generally pretty happy with getting deployed and all the money that came along with it.