>The military got the best and brightest during WWII because the US was fighting Nazis ... and a foreign enemy who had attacked us on our own soil. For Vietnam, they had to draft because few believed in the cause and what they got where those too powerless to escape the draft ...

WWII also had a draft, as did WWI and the Civil War. More people (as a percentage) volunteered for Vietnam than did WWII. That surprised me when I heard it. Americans were pretty gung-ho about enlisting in Vietnam and didn't really sour on it until later in the war. It was during the communism scare, so people fully bought into the Domino Theory at the time. Russia went nuclear, North Korea invaded South, the Iron Curtain went up, Cuban Missle Crisis, McCarthy, Sputnik, and a lot of chest thumping made it a pretty scary time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2x491p/volun...

I think your general point is valid. It's better to enlist when the country isn't at war, and that hasn't been for what, going on 18 years now? Enlistees nor draftees typically don't decide what features a warship has though.