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I realize lots of men were needed but pretty much every American backed the war and I have heard it said by those that think the draft should be abolished is that "If there aren't enough people willing to fight a war then it's not enough of a cause to go to war in the first place". I use WWII due to it being the one war America has been in that pretty much everyone and their mom was all for.
The draft was needed initially to staff up the army before war was declared and it became popular. After that it became a good standardized way to handle the volume needs of all the armed forces. Since everyone was registered and given a category it allowed the armed forces to know what was available over the next few months and set the intake standards accordingly. As I understand how the system worked you could volunteer for early induction and there was some flexibility in how you were assigned (Navy, Army, Marines, Air Corps, Coast Guard) it was all done through the Selective Service system. I have heard of several different methods being used to allow inductees to choose the service they were assigned to.
A common one was for the induction center to announce "I need 50 people to be Marines' and anyone that wanted to be a Marine would step forward. They would proceed like that for all branches except the Army. If there had been enough volunteers then everyone else went to the Army. If there were not enough volunteers enough to fill the quotas would be selected somewhat at random.
Another way was to have them line up and announce 'every 5th man is a Marine' and allow a couple minutes for people who wanted to be a Marine to shuffle into place (and people who didn't try to get out of the affected positions)
Needed lots of soldiers FAST, so yes it was needed.
Needed lots fast but didn't need them all at once with the problem of volunteers disappearing after December 8th if something happened in the news to cool the anger of the initial shock. If it was thought that everybody wasn't sharing the risk the volunteer pool may have been smaller with everyone thinking I will let someone else do it.
I realize lots of men were needed but pretty much every American backed the war and I have heard it said by those that think the draft should be abolished is that "If there aren't enough people willing to fight a war then it's not enough of a cause to go to war in the first place". I use WWII due to it being the one war America has been in that pretty much everyone and their mom was all for.
So what do you think?
People were willing to fight the war, but they were also willing to wait until they were called up. Nothing wrong with that.
Another way was to have them line up and announce 'every 5th man is a Marine' and allow a couple minutes for people who wanted to be a Marine to shuffle into place (and people who didn't try to get out of the affected positions)
That actually happened as late as 1969. May 28th, to be exact, at the Indianapolis AFEES station. I know, I was one of the people who said "FIVE!" When the Marine sergeant told the "FIVES" to take two paces forward and announced we were now Marines I told him I was going in the Navy.
"Have you signed a contract yet?"
"Yes, sir, 90-day delay program. And I wasn't drafted anyway."
"Okay, take two paces back. Man to his left, take two paces forward."
I got a very nasty look from that guy. I sometimes wonder if he lived through his two years. And if he told that story every chance he got.
The U.S. military in 1940 was comprised of 458,000 personnel, a number that would grow to 1,801,101 in 1941 eventually ending with more than 12 million in uniform of one of the five services by 1945. Even with Pearl Harbor I doubt that the military would have grown to those levels fueled just by patriotism.
The draft was needed initially to staff up the army before war was declared and it became popular. After that it became a good standardized way to handle the volume needs of all the armed forces. Since everyone was registered and given a category it allowed the armed forces to know what was available over the next few months and set the intake standards accordingly. As I understand how the system worked you could volunteer for early induction and there was some flexibility in how you were assigned (Navy, Army, Marines, Air Corps, Coast Guard) it was all done through the Selective Service system. I have heard of several different methods being used to allow inductees to choose the service they were assigned to.
A common one was for the induction center to announce "I need 50 people to be Marines' and anyone that wanted to be a Marine would step forward. They would proceed like that for all branches except the Army. If there had been enough volunteers then everyone else went to the Army. If there were not enough volunteers enough to fill the quotas would be selected somewhat at random.
Another way was to have them line up and announce 'every 5th man is a Marine' and allow a couple minutes for people who wanted to be a Marine to shuffle into place (and people who didn't try to get out of the affected positions)
That is all very true. However, in the vision of equality, people and their nations get along
That actually happened as late as 1969. May 28th, to be exact, at the Indianapolis AFEES station. I know, I was one of the people who said "FIVE!" When the Marine sergeant told the "FIVES" to take two paces forward and announced we were now Marines I told him I was going in the Navy.
"Have you signed a contract yet?"
"Yes, sir, 90-day delay program. And I wasn't drafted anyway."
"Okay, take two paces back. Man to his left, take two paces forward."
I got a very nasty look from that guy. I sometimes wonder if he lived through his two years. And if he told that story every chance he got.
Semper fi, Mac.
I was a 2 year draftee into the Navy on October 14, 1965.
They stated the Navy did not reach its enlistment quota and 5 men were needed out of 80 of us draftees.
No one volunteered so he just walked around with a clipboard and picked 5 of us out.
I was a 2 year draftee into the Navy on October 14, 1965.
They stated the Navy did not reach its enlistment quota and 5 men were needed out of 80 of us draftees.
No one volunteered so he just walked around with a clipboard and picked 5 of us out.
Odd that no one volunteered. I wonder how many of the other 75 didn't make it through the next two years.
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