this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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[–] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 99 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

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

Are we just rewriting history to ignore Vietnam?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

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

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 39 points 1 day 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.

[–] vvilld@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

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

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 11 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

What % of the population actually fought in the war?

[–] booly@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 hours 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
[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 9 points 16 hours ago

I guess that depends how poor and black they were.

[–] ilega_dh@feddit.nl 6 points 17 hours ago

Not enough to win it

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 6 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Not everyone in the world is an American of course.

[–] Machinist@lemmy.world 30 points 21 hours 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.

[–] BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 15 points 1 day 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

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 4 points 23 hours ago

found Ted Nugent's lemmy account

[–] leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 18 points 1 day ago