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Comment by losteverything | Hacker News Reader

What jumped out was the mere mention of the draft (wwii). I even looked it up.

The narrative my wwii relatives give is everyone enlisted. If you didnt there was shame that required an explanation

~60% of US military in the WW II time period were draftees. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-...

Doesn't refute the idea that shame might have been involved, but...

My history could be very distorted but the "war is bad and to be avoided" idea came to life (in my lifetime) during Vietnam years.

I cant imagine the us population rallying around a new war like they did in the '40's

Only about 25% of US military in Vietnam were draftees. Suggests there were 2 distinct trains of thought on "war is bad".

We saw similar rallying in the year following 9-11 and the initial invasion of Afghanistan. With the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it became more complicated very quickly.

If something akin to a "Pearl Harbor" struck us today I could totally see us rallying around a new war.

Yes and no. You have to remember that the draft started some time before the US was actually at war. A lot of people did volunteer, before the declaration of war and after; but many of them knew that the draft was waiting for them if they didn't.

The Idea Factory does note that there were Bell Labs engineers who were chided on the street by strangers for not being overseas.

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