Tom Easton
2/10/14
English 10
Draft Essay
The Vietnam Draft
The Vietnam draft was proposed on February 29, 1969. This draft was held by birthdays. Numbers 1 through 366 were placed in a glass jar. On national television the 1st number drawn was, the number was 258. This number meant that any male between 18 and 25 with the birthday of September 14 must report to the military services. There was a total of 195 numbers drawn. Later on that same year they held a second draft. This draft was a lot different. They but the alphabet into a glass jar and drew 6 letters. The first 3 letters had to match your initials. For example on me, my name is Thomas James Easton and the letters would have to have been TJE. This was how men were drafted into the beginning of the Vietnam War.
There are few pros and many cons about a draft.
These are a couple pros on a draft. A huge pro is mobilization. This is so you can get a large number of men in training service ready for a battle. This will give your military a large man power boost. Another is that you will have a lot of fresh men all the time. Not fighting with wounded or older men. This could give you the advantage at times. There are many cons to having a draft. The first that stood out to me was all the young men we had lost in just a couple years. The American population went down by 3 percent. A lot of the men didn't want to fight so they would flee to Canada, fake an injury, or just try and avoid being seen and stay hidden. Most of the men who ended up going to Vietnam didn't want to be there. They would fight to survive but, make stupid mistakes and cause more causality. Overall the most percent of the men were not too efficient soldiers.
In my opinion the draft is a good thing to have but not in a war like Vietnam. As of like I mean the United States wasn't being attacked so there is no real cause to have that many young people dying. The draft is good so that it strengthens the military. In a war like Vietnam where there is no real threat to our own county we don't need that many people dying. I would hate to be a kid in the 60s around 17 to know that I have to go into the draft with more than a 50 percent chance of being selected. I really don't know how I would handle this. To hear stories about Vietnam is terrible. To imagine that a kid at 18, 19, or older had put these images into his head for the rest of his life. I can see how some of those young men went crazy after the war. In a way I see myself doing that. I wouldn't be able to function right for awhile anyway.
If there is ever a draft again I would serve my county to protect the land I live on every day. I don't think I would like to go somewhere I don't know and fight for no true cause. The draft hurts family's life's and tears apart the young male population but, if there is an enemy that needs to be stopped the fasted way is to draft.