this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 104 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (7 children)

The 60s? Don't have to fight in a war?

Are we just rewriting history to ignore Vietnam?

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh woops i broke my ankle and an anti war doctor said I'll never walk again.

Oh woops I'm on extended vacation in Canada.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If you were not upper-middle class (or higher) and white, these really weren't realistic options to avoid the draft.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Im continuing the idealistic boomer life we are talking about in this thread

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Don't mind me, just thinking about how peaceful Americans were between 1949 and 1965

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

all these pussies breaking ankles and citing bone spurs know a real man shits his pants right in front of the officer

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

found Ted Nugent's lemmy account

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (3 children)

What % of the population actually fought in the war?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

Page 45 of this PDF has a good chart. It shows that about 26.8 million men were draft eligible in that generation, and about 8.7 million enlisted, 2.2 million were drafted, and 16.0 million never served, including about 570,000 apparent draft dodgers.

About 2.1 million actually went to Vietnam, and about 1.55 million were in combat roles in Vietnam. 51,000 were killed.

So roughly:

  • 41% of that generation of men were in the military
  • 8% of that generation went to Vietnam
  • 6% of that generation fought in Vietnam
  • About 0.2% of that generation died in Vietnam
[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

I guess that depends how poor and black they were.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

Not enough to win it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not everyone in the world is an American of course.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago

Picking up hitchhikers to Woodstock during the summer of '69 kind of narrows it down unless op was one of those maple syrup types.