There is no war in Vietnam
this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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They were calling citizens in alternating groups of SSNs like a lottery. When it was my Dad's buddy's turn to show up for the medical he thought he'd fake extreme scoliosis, slouched one shoulder back and down, then half limped into the doctors office.
He was never even asked to take his shirt off and got excused on medical grounds.
Sounds like a typical trump republican
Not sure if Trump even got examined when he got his medical exemption
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I could have gone to canada, I could have stayed in school
The 60s? Don't have to fight in a war?
Are we just rewriting history to ignore Vietnam?
Oh woops i broke my ankle and an anti war doctor said I'll never walk again.
Oh woops I'm on extended vacation in Canada.
If you were not upper-middle class (or higher) and white, these really weren't realistic options to avoid the draft.
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Bone spurs.
all these pussies breaking ankles and citing bone spurs know a real man shits his pants right in front of the officer
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What % of the population actually fought in the war?
Page 45 of this PDF has a good chart. It shows that about 26.8 million men were draft eligible in that generation, and about 8.7 million enlisted, 2.2 million were drafted, and 16.0 million never served, including about 570,000 apparent draft dodgers.
About 2.1 million actually went to Vietnam, and about 1.55 million were in combat roles in Vietnam. 51,000 were killed.
So roughly:
- 41% of that generation of men were in the military
- 8% of that generation went to Vietnam
- 6% of that generation fought in Vietnam
- About 0.2% of that generation died in Vietnam
I guess that depends how poor and black they were.
Not enough to win it
Not everyone in the world is an American of course.
Picking up hitchhikers to Woodstock during the summer of '69 kind of narrows it down unless op was one of those maple syrup types.
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That generation got paid $45 an hour in today's value.
Federal minimum wage in 1965 was $1.25/h, which is $12.69/h today. Looks like Alaska had the highest state minimum at $2.10, $21.32 today. Or were you taking more average rather than minimum wage?
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If you scale it to housing prices, it's even more ridiculous.
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My first house in 1999 was an older 4 bdrm on 14 acres of land for $50 grand. There were a lot of homes in the 30-40 grand range but lesser yards.
Now those same houses when they go up for sale are selling for 200-250k easily. (My place would be worth more than that.. "hobby farms" like what I are selling for even 300-500k here now.)
For note: 50k from 1999 is worth 96k today
Also worth noting: in most areas, that price is exceptionally cheap for what he got, even for the time.
I wish I still had it, but a divorce about 15-20 yrs ago took care of that. I loved it, 1950's bungalow style house, 2 car garage, small(30ft) barn and a bunch of sheds, nicely treed in.
looking through realtors right now, and spec wise the cheapest thing I can find around here similar to it is up for $389,000 but only has 10 acres.
Prices are/were cheap here because I'm like an hour and a half away from the city.
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They left out ‘be white.’ It was a horrific time for anyone else.
Even just the 90s was crazy. Not calculated with inflation because I'm bad at maths but my folks' house they bought in 1992 has more than quintupled in value.
Here's a rule of thumb - the federal reserve has a target inflation rate that they try to meet, and that is usually around 2%. Therefore, if you want to do a quick party trick you can do the mental math that things have roughly doubled in price since the 90s. Recent covid related inflation, upcoming tariff related inflation, and 1970s inflation break the trend, but typically the value of money halves every 30-35 years.
A nice rule of thumb is that the doubling time for anything growing by a specific percentage is roughly 70 divided by that percentage. So inflation of 2% annually means something will be twice as expensive every 35 years. A 2% increase in energy use means we will use twice as much energy in 35 years. And those fossil fuel deposits (or other raw materials of choice) that are going to last a couple of hundred years "at current rate of use" will be used up twice as fast at 2% increased use every year in a mere 35 years and four times as fast in 70 years at which point those "hundreds of years" of reserves are probably almost gone.
If you want to get real nerdy about it this works because the natural logarithm of 2 is ~0.69
(1+i)^n = 2
n log (1+i) = log 2
n = log 2 / log (1+i)
For small numbers, log(1+x) ≈ x
n ≈ log 2/i
log 2 ≈ 0.69
n ≈ 0.69 / i
n ≈ 69/100i
Which is pretty close to 70/100i which is the approximation.
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I know someone who's house value went up by 440% of her mortgage payment every month for 10 years.
Imagine getting paid four fucking fold on your rent. Jesus Christ.
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If OP was 20 in the Summer of '69 then he most certainly was eligible to fight in a war.
Wasn't it like 8.25% of eligible men were drafted? Which doesn't include college deferments, "bone spur" avoidance, etc?
More than 9 out of 10 people didn't get drafted. It certainly sucked for those who did, but the majority didn't have to worry about war.
I would not have wanted to take my chances of being one of the 1/12. They not have had to worry once it was all over, but while it was happening a lot of people were at risk of being sent to die in a foreign land.
Oh yeah I get what you're saying, and I'd agree cause I'm sure I'd have been picked (Although I guess we could probably look at the records and see if we would have been drafted based on our birthdays). It still doesn't change the fact the economy was way better for everyone though.
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I’m starting to think this “Anon” guy just makes shit up!
I've met a boomer that basically has lived this greentext. I thought it was an exaggeration until I met him.
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For the thousands of stories like this, there’s thousands more of people that gave their shit away for peanuts because they didn’t understand the value of what they had. My dad gave away so much shit for no reason it’s mind boggling. He sold a 61 Mustang for 15k in 1998.
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Yup that was the life for both my brothers (born in 1945 and 1950, me in 57). They kicked it just in time that is for sure.
who the fuck is dodging both korea and vietnam in an age of general conscription?
Be born in 1949
Fake and attracted to same gender.
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