alt Hacker News> I think you could argue the draft forced the war to be real for more families (and the expansion of TV), intensifying the resistance to it.
Yeah, it did, all the young men of draft age had to live knowing that they might get drafted and be forced to fight and die. Even if they were never called, or in retrospect were too old at the time.
We seem to have largely forgotten that now, along with the "Vietnam Syndrome" that the US military "suffered" through until we were successful in applying military force in 1991 with the Gulf War.
I almost hope they're successful in doing this. We've also lost the focus on clearly defined objectives for war.
It seems like we need a horrible mess to learn all the hard lessons all over again.
Replies
> It seems like we need a horrible mess to learn all the hard lessons all over again.
Indeed. This is all of human history. No matter what the problem is we are infatuated with the idea of the ultimate solution being exterminating everyone who does not agree with our worldview.
> We've also lost the focus on clearly defined objectives for war.
Are you saying we had this in Vietnam?
And I don't think the evidence is strong that these "hard lessons" did anything to keep that same generation from supporting the pointless wars that followed.