Off Topic would be a good place to continue this line of discussion, you can just begin as a new thread.
It’s because we no longer have a draft, the professional military is a means to minimize widespread dissent by keeping the middle classes pacified…
By making sure that the casualties are predominantly from the lower classes, and that the middle classes are not at risk because there is no draft forcing them / their children to be at risk?
Is there any proof Vietnam soldiers were middle class as well lower?
Or in particular: that the casualties were evenly spread through the classes?
I can imagine higher education gets you further away from the field.
In other words: is Iraq so much different than Vietnam or any other war in term of drafting soldiers?
a means to minimize widespread dissent by keeping the middle classes pacified…
and blunt towards the soldiers returning home just as in Vietnam years.
Both “camps” have their strong arguments:
War is always a painful means on one hand, yet soldiers often are not as well treated or regarded by their fellow countrymen as well.
I don’t think that anyone claims that there were no middle, or upper, class servicemen, and women, in Vietnam. There were. The question is whether there were proportionate representations of those classes, and especially in combat units and more so for American officers having full service periods in combat units rather than short service to get a combat qualification and then return to a base or other non-combat unit.
When was anything ever evenly spread through the classes?
But it’s not always the case that the privileged avoid the burden. The British and French, and other combatants, lost a significant proportion of their best and brightest, who at the time came primarily from their privileged classes, in WWI. The reverse was true for the Americans and Australians in Vietnam. I don’t know about the Koreans, or for that matter the South Vietnamese, in Vietnam.
This review of Christian Appy’s book on the topic summarises relevant aspects on Vietnam.
WORKING-CLASS WAR
Christian G. Appy
University of North Carolina Press, $39.95, 363 pp.
I met my first Vietnam War combat veteran in the mid- 1960s while teaching in a community college some sixty miles from New York City. One day, after I had spoken out against the war to a campus antiwar group, a neatly dressed student approached me. I remember him saying, the tension evident in his tightly drawn lips, that he objected to my remarks about the war. What did I know? He had been there and I hadn’t.
From that moment on we talked regularly. As I wrote at the time, “I was struck by his anger, his intensity, his bewilderment.” He came from an Italian-American working-class family, and his older brothers had all served in the military. Just ninety days away from free-fire zones and sweep-and-destroy missions, with a Purple Heart, he was unable to comprehend the world he left behind in 1965 when he was drafted or the horrors he witnessed at war. He was neither hawk nor dove, but in time it became clear that, as Christian G. Appy writes in this definitive and engrossing study of combat veterans and their economic class, something was eating at his soul.
That “something,” writes Appy, an assistant professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who also attended a weekly Vietnam-veteran rap group for six years, was that many of these men–impotent in civilian life as sons of the lower-middle and working class–had become cogs in the world’s most lethal military machine and “committed acts and took risks they never imagined themselves capable of from the most heroic to the most savage–in pursuit of a cause they could neither win nor identify nor embrace.”
What makes Working-Class War so worthwhile is that it looks into the socioeconomic backgrounds of combat veterans as a way of making sense of their military and postwar experiences, including the frigid welcome they received from an unforgiving public and government. Appy’s conclusion is that Vietnam was a class war which drew its troopers–about 80 percent of them–from the poorer and blue-collar classes. He quotes one bitter veteran saying, “It was a case of business as usual. Instead of everybody getting drafted, people who could go to college often did; it was those who couldn’t who went into the military.” This sort of comment, widely expressed, reflected their profound resentment of people who lived in suburbs, whose kids went to college rather than basic training, and who eventually had better life chances than they. Appy argues as well that this antagonism lay behind much of the fury that was everpresent when workers flew “Love It or Leave It” banners or shouted down and beat up protesting college students, a proposition that Andrew Levinson wrote about in Working Class Majority (1975), that it was more often than not “class and class distinction” and not their support for a war they could barely understand that aroused blue-collar disgust. I remember one veteran, a self-described prowar vet, once shouting at me, “Where were the sons of all the big shots who supported the war?”
Much of this is by now reasonably familiar, thanks in part to Lawrence Baskit and William Strauss’s classic accounting in Chance and Circumstance (1978) of who went and who didn’t. Yet twenty-eight years after the dispatch of large numbers of troops to defend “freedom” in Vietnam, the reasons for the intervention remain unexamined at the highest political levels other than occasional babble about exorcising the “Vietnam Syndrome.” And certainly few have explained at least to my satisfaction why public policy channeled poorer kids into the military.
We know, though we may no longer care, that the National Guard and Reserves were draft havens, effectively closed to black applicants, “whatever their economic status,” notes Appy. Congressional, executive branch, and Pentagon families saw that their sons and grandsons were exempted; hawks, neoconservatives, columnists, editorial writers, and publishers who supported every step of escalation and who publicly thirsted for more bombing and violence made sure that their male issue stayed home one way or another; and many of our contemporary “chicken hawks” fled from military service but later, when they were too old for the military, shamelessly backed military interventions and a renewal of the draft. As Appy concludes, “The critics and architects of the war did the talking, while the sons of workers did the fighting.” (Personally, I exclude here the relatively few brave souls who became COs, or who went to prison or into exile for their beliefs, and willingly accepted the consequences of their defiance.) But even more: Few now want to own up to the unfair burden placed on the working class and its possible implications.
Nor for that matter have many acknowledged or studied the complex reasons why so many working-class people seemed to support the war, a war that hardly benefited them despite what livingroom heroes were repeatedly telling them. Polls taken at the time revealed that workers reacted much as did the white-collar and professional classes: Survey after survey showed that workers often favored getting out of Vietnam; in 1972, as Appy points out, George McGovern received a larger percentage of worker votes than he got from white-collar professionals.
No one then or now likes to talk about class in America. Then it was shrewder for Nixon and his apologists to prattle on about a supposed “silent majority” yet say nothing about the sacrifices their children were forced to undergo. Today, with millions of once loyal workers transformed into the detritus of a mismanaged and avaricious economic system, class still remains our dirty little secret.
The price we exacted from our working class in Vietnam may be common knowledge, though few Americans or molders of public opinion dwell on it very much; the sentiment remains that we gave them a wall and some parades. What more do they want? But the price for Vietnam veterans who could not adjust is still inordinately high. The Vietnam Veterans of America reported that in March 1992, 19.2 percent or one in five imprisoned criminals were veterans, a large majority. of whom are Vietnam-era vets. About one-third of single homeless males are veterans. Veteran suicide rates exceed those of civilians while post-traumatic stress disorders and diseases resulting from the spraying of toxic defoliants continue to wreak havoc.
Let us hope that care, great care, will be taken in the future before our new president, who was a war protester, emulates Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and dispatches American young people into a conflict, especially one that does not require equal sacrifices from our elite families, especially those who live or work in Washington, D.C.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_n8_v120/ai_13794153/?tag=content;col1
During the Vietnam war, in America and Australia higher education got you as far away from the field as it is possible to be if you wanted to be far away. University students generally had their enlistment deferrred until they finished their courses, if they chose to take the deferral.
The same options to avoid service if called up weren’t available to apprentice carpenters and trainee metalworkers etc.
Yes, because America, Britain and Australia had all volunteer armies in Iraq. America and Australia had mixed volunteer and conscripted armies in Vietnam but both abandoned conscription after Vietnam. Britain, which did not have troops in Vietnam, abandoned conscription in the early 1960s.
I can’t think of any argument, let alone a strong one, for exempting the more privileged elements of society from bearing their proportionate share of military service as the less privileged elements.
I can think of strong arguments for requiring the more privileged elements of society to bear a greater share of the military service burden in action because they are the ones who benefit most from having their privilege protected. But the rich think that the poor exist to serve their interests and generally it works that way in every country, with many noble exceptions in WWs I and II but relatively few in Vietnam and probably even fewer in Afghanistan and Iraq.
With camps I ment
on one hand the banner waving patriots, that continuously praise and hail the brave soldiers as well as the war itself
on the other hand the mainly midclass protestors.
I believe that there would be less support for “military adventures” such as Iraq and Afghanistan if we had conscription. In my opinion there was justification for the attack on Afghanistan; that justification vaporized when Al Qaeda retreated into Pakistan, and disappeared completely with the killing of Bin Laden. Afghanistan is never going to have an “American-style” democracy. Same thing in Iraq. There was never any justification for the attack on Iraq and a conscripted army might have revolted when faced with the prospect of being there for more than ten years. An all-volunteer army freed the administration from the constraints of having to deal with draftees and the administration knew and abused that. Conservatives don’t want to admit it, but the attack on Iraq if effect delivered that country into the hands of Iran which fought a war with Iraq for many years. Talk about unintended consequences.
In my opinion, we would be better off forging a very strong alliance with the Indians and forget about Pakistan whose fingerprints are all over mischief in Afghanistan. They are completely untrustworthy. For those interested in the subject of Afghanistan, let me recommend a little known but well-written book by James Michener called “Caravans”.
Neoconservatives 
I call myself a conservative as well.
It’s the painful truth that given time and reflection, many Americans might think like you (if they don’t already). And that europeans don’t think much differently.
9/11 was a symbol of understanding and compassion and Europe supported the Afghan campaign at first. The continued effort however - with diminishing justification - and the Iraq campaign from start in all its aspects, brought an end to this support.
I doubt it’s that simple.
“Banner waving patriots” come from all classes, as do those opposed to a given war.
Not all those opposed to a war engage in protests, nor are they by birth necessarily middle class. Some of the most profoundly anti-war people I have met are soldiers who served in wars from WWII to Vietnam, from varying class backgrounds but predominantly working or lower middle class at the time of their enlistment. They have experienced war and understood its ultimate futility once the politicians and the major economic interests who support them have done with the war and resumed relations and trade with the former enemy.
As for “continuously praise and hail the brave soldiers as well as the war itself” that is where governments excel in promising those who enlist a land fit for heroes upon their return, if they return, from the war. And then treating them with varying degrees of contempt once the war is over.
As Goering said in another context, it works the same in all nations.
And there would be considerably less support if conscription worked on the basis that a fair society would require that those who had the most to lose and most to gain from a war would shoulder the greatest burden. This translates to the children of the most wealthy and most powerful being the first to be conscripted and the children of the poorest and least powerful being the last. Better still, conscript the parents on the same basis.
It’s a fantasy, but if this could be implemented world wide I think we should see a significant reduction in wars.
What you describe is the nucleus of communism
“superstructure” vs “substructure” opium for the people etc … have-nots live in service for the have-lots etc…
There is however a part of middle class protesting against war AND contempting soldiers
( for my part, I really think a lot of the WWII liberator stories and about dying for the “lazy” euro citizens is as much a gouvernment story as others, comforting the people at home for the loss of soldiers)
Yes, hundreds of thousands of middle class kids went to Vietnam. Many of these were graduated university students. Student deferments lasted only until the end of college. After that, it was open season unless one was employed in an “essential industry” or one’s draft lottery number was very high, or service in the Peace Corps and VISTA (I think). Primarily, in my opinion, it was the draft that ended the Vietnam War - returning soldiers and students about to be sent to Vietnam (high school graduates) and post-university graduates resisting the war (“Hell No, We won’t Go”) and rioting in the streets (remember the Chicago riots during the Democratic Convention and Mayor Daley’s 'Police Riot" to suppress them?) against it convinced Lyndon Johnson not to run again and forced Nixon to bring the war to an end. Vietnam was never a threat to anyone. It was a civil war, pure and simple. “Peace with Honor” (my derriere) to a war that should never have been fought at all. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Bush managed to hoax the people one more time in Iraq - shame on us.
So yes, Iraq was very different since there were no draftees at all.
@Rising Sun:
I’ll be in Australia this week.
Like it or not, but my sister lives there since a year or 5 and she’ getting married … to an Englishman that lives there as well.
I’ll try to “explore the aussie spirit” over there a bit. Very curious.
Mind the spiders…
Just to put my grain of salt in your discussion gentlemen, the war itself is a crime, and the reason the winner is always the strongest. With the American archives, which now downgrade their military secrets of World War II, we now know more about the ins and outs of this terrible slaughter that this war was.
Regards to all Fred
You and your sister are welcome here, but the Englishman may be a different issue. 
Good luck finding it.
Whatever it may be beyond normal human spirit in all its forms and breadth, it exists mainly in myth, although that myth serves a useful purpose by inspiring some people to live up to the myth.
Talking about ‘Aussie spirit’ makes as much sense as the recent fondness in some quarters for referring to something being ‘unAustralian’. It means whatever the speaker and audience want it to mean, or not to mean.
That doesn’t alter the fact that in WWII the winners were the victims of numerous and outrageous criminal acts by the aggressors, who thought they were and in WWII generally were the strongest at the time they started their wars of aggression.
The losers have no grounds to complain about losing the wars they started, especially when the victims were just better fighters with the same types of weapons and tactics the aggressors initiated.
It’s all very well for well-intentioned people to abhor the horrors of war as waged by the Allies, but here are some questions for a reality check.
- Who started the wars and brought the Allied response upon the Axis nations?
- If Germany and Japan had defeated the Allies, would the fascists and militarists in those countries now be beating their breasts over the weapons and tactics they used, or would they be extolling their martial might and skill and deriding the Allies’ lack of the same qualities because they were decadent peoples?
- If the Axis powers had won, would they now be wringing their hands over their slaughters of millions of innocent civilians, in multiples which vastly exceeded the casualties in all Allied bombing campaigns, or would they still be occupying foreign lands and enslaving the civilians who survived?
War is an obscenity, but the crime is committed by those who start a war of agression, not those who defend themeselves against the aggressor.
agreed
The losers have no grounds to complain about losing the wars they started, especially when the victims were just better fighters with the same types of weapons and tactics the aggressors initiated.
agreed
It’s all very well for well-intentioned people to abhor the horrors of war as waged by the Allies, but here are some questions for a reality check.
- Who started the wars and brought the Allied response upon the Axis nations?
- If Germany and Japan had defeated the Allies, would the fascists and militarists in those countries now be beating their breasts over the weapons and tactics they used, or would they be extolling their martial might and skill and deriding the Allies’ lack of the same qualities because they were decadent peoples?
- If the Axis powers had won, would they now be wringing their hands over their slaughters of millions of innocent civilians, in multiples which vastly exceeded the casualties in all Allied bombing campaigns, or would they still be occupying foreign lands and enslaving the civilians who survived?
the nazi empire would have had the same history as the soviet one in my eyes.
In the end it would have collapsed by its own weight.
And I really think after all those years there would have been internal pacifists and lefties that would have rebelled and reveal the past
War is an obscenity, but the crime is committed by those who start a war of agression, not those who defend themeselves against the aggressor.
I guess it’s about the same with murder of a murderer
taking right in your own hands etc…
Is killing a killer without a trial a crime?
And does such a trial would excuse the first crime? I say it does not.
You are quite right Rising Sun, but my point was not to say that Germany and his henchmen were the victims, I think absolutely no opponent, but we must recognize one thing that the bombing such as those of Dresden and Hamburg, have nothing to do with a tactic of war, but rather an absurd belief which reminds those who have decided that to raze a city and kill all its peoples shorten the war, big mistake because the opposite always happens and people conspire against the oppressor, while the oppressor himself is the leader of this people, Hiler did exactly the same mistake with the bombing of London. It is obviously that the acts committed by the Germans and Japanese during the Second World War were unspeakable, but that does not relieve the responsibility of their own allies in fact, the bombing of the district of Minamata by the American B29 that I recall cost the lives of over one hundred thousand Japanese civilians, was it your view justified by military tactics, ask yourself this question.
friendships Fred