Submitted by AutoModerator t3_y4m4lb in history
platitood t1_isfytca wrote
Reply to comment by Thibaudborny in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator
The draft was in effect from 1940 to 1973.
Thibaudborny t1_isg29vf wrote
Yes, but when you have enough volunteers you don’t need to enforce it. The problem was the rapid escalation.
platitood t1_isgj7xe wrote
Everything you are saying about Vietnam is true, but I feel like you are mischaracterizing the timing of draft and its enforcement. Elvis Presley was famously drafted during peacetime. The idea that we could maintain a fully staffed military with volunteers only, wasn’t seriously considered during this era.
What Vietnam did was contribute to killing the draft, although mandatory registration for selective service continued.
https://www.sss.gov/history-and-records/induction-statistics/
Notice that the pattern is pretty much, more people for war, fewer people for peacetime, and then it tapers off to the end of 1973, because Vietnam and the ensuing backlash and protest, exposed all of the worst problems with the draft
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