In article ,
Dale wrote:
Vietnam was treated like an abberation in the day-to-day life rather
than an all consuming role.

It's odd if that was the attitude of the military...

It was deliberate government policy, set in the Oval Office. LBJ was
adamantly opposed to making Vietnam an actual war -- with recruiting
drives, propaganda campaigns, bond rallies, the whole nine yards --
because that would have required political compromises that would have
derailed many of his social initiatives back home. Wars tend to do that;
he'd seen it happen under FDR.

Note, in particular, that despite all the fuss over the draft, Vietnam did
not see much mobilization of the reserves and National Guard. This was
deliberate policy: a lot of those folks were older and settled into
communities, so mobilizing them would disrupt things a lot more and bring
the war home to the voting public much more. Drafting college students
looked to have much less political impact.

(And in reaction to the botched mess that resulted from this approach, the
post-Vietnam military reorganized responsibilities -- notably, moving
important specialties entirely into the reserves -- specifically to make
it *impossible* to fight another war, even a small one, without mobilizing
the reserves.)
--
No, the devil isn't in the details. | Henry Spencer
The devil is in the *assumptions*. |