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Because my father had two years of college, he was enrolled in some sort of officer candidate program (not OCS). I think the program was designated V-something. However, somewhere around 1943, the military was faced with a severe manpower shortage and the program was shut down. Dad became an enlisted man eventually rising to the rank of sergeant. He served in the 102nd Ozark Division and was wounded. He had nightmares at least once or twice a month, a drinking problem, and carried shrapnel in his body until he died. But he was very proud of his service. Finally, when he was in his eighties, I convinced him to tell his story. Using podcast software, I recorded it and made it available to several living history projects in his home state. Of course he didn't tell the whole story, even all those decades later,it was too painful for him. But he was a good enough story teller that we got the sense of it. Thanks, Dad.
A lot of young men in Canada signed up voluntarily because they needed "three hots and a cot"... there were few jobs for them during the Great Depression. So that was on top of the British imperial connection and the motive to sign up to defend Britain.
The U.S. didn't have such close ties to Britain, so it's harder to see how the war would've been as compelling for a regular American living in Indiana, say.... but then, jobs were also scarce for young men in the U.S. due to the Great Depression.
It's a good question. Maybe lots of young men would've signed up without the draft.
A clear majority of Americans realized we'd have to fight the Axis sooner or later. The numbers after June 1940 were increasingly interventionist. Index of /pha/Gallup
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