One thing to keep in mind is that for most of the war, it had strong public support. There was a continuous defamation campaign against the anti-war movement. Days after the shooting at Kent, a poll showed 80% agreeing that it was the students' fault.

I'm speculating, but I think that the few who refused to serve were met with the same outrage that someone like Weinstein receives today. It's no surprise that most eighteen-year-old boys could not do that, even if they were strongly against the war.

I reckon I would probably have rather fought than faced the shame of being a draft dodger. It couldn't have been that obvious when the war was in the middle, that it would turn out as it did. America usually wins.

I think shadowgovt's post was quite neat: the draft and the body count.

All manner of reasons. Some legitimately felt called to serve. This is still a generation who's parents were drafted into World War II and Korea; in the psyche of a lot of Americans, the draft was still a virtuous thing that the well-chosen democratically-elected representatives of their great nation would never activate for a foolish boondoggle. They didn't know a Vietnam could happen because a Vietnam hadn't happened yet; they weren't the generation raised listening to CCR's "Fortunate Son." The pull of the mainstream is very strong.

Five years in jail is also quite a long time, and as the war dragged on I suspect a lot of folks weren't sure how long those jail sentences would ultimately be; remember, if you were drafted, dodged, were caught, and served, you'd be immediately drafted again and could go right back to jail (because the war lasted longer than 5 years). Since the goals were unclear, I suspect many served thinking the war would be over soon and a couple years in a battlefield with "the army that saved the world from Hitler" would be better than cooling your heels in jail for five years (and then being branded a coward by your family the rest of your life because your dad lost two brothers in his War and you were too chickenshit to live up to the family legacy).

Draft dodging wasn't the obvious correct choice until many years into the war; Americans had won (or at least come to a standstill on) drafted wars before.

Yea, it's hard to imagine now, but they didn't all have the benefit of hindsight that we do.

Many people were very proud of their service in WWII and Korea, and they passed that pride on to their kids. WWI was still in living memory at that time, too.

Kids were way less cynical. I think it's legitimately hard to imagine now.

Imagine for a moment that you live in a country that has fought a half dozen wars somewhere in the past century, and that every one of those was (more or less) morally justified. Your great-grandfathers, grandfathers, and father were probably drafted into those, fought and (likely, you were born after all) returned.

But the next war comes up, and everyone tells you that it's righteous too. Maybe they're mistaken or deluded. The people in charge, demanding this war, they aren't supervillains either. They believe they're fighting communism, and while they probably couldn't have known for sure at the time, history has shown it to have been horrible enough that some sort of strategy should've been employed (even if not a shooting war).

Are you going to be the one to back down? There's none of this wokeness that exists today. You'd be called worse than just a pussy for dodging it. Even those who knew of and understood shell shock only cut slack for those who had suffered it, you wouldn't get pre-emptive sympathy.

And those grandfathers and fathers who did go off and fight, you're sort of insulting them though not coming out and saying it outright. If you're morally justified in dodging the draft, should they have done the same? They didn't, so are they just amoral killers now? And this isn't going on in your own head, not entirely, you can tell they're sitting there thinking the same thing, wondering if you'll be one of the hippies that insults them by dodging.

There may be moral principles strong enough that it would demand someone dodge the draft, but those sorts of principles aren't popular or encouraged in the US. Why, if people will dodge the draft during bad wars because of this, what does it mean if the principles say "all wars in which enemies aren't landing on our beaching and dropping shells on our undefended cities are bad"? Well, it means that officeholders who will eventually want a war of their own can't have it. And all officeholders eventually want a war, even if they all can't agree on which.

That's why everyone didn't dodge the draft. Sociological pressures, psychological pressures. Ambiguous popular moralities and people not wise or strong enough to create better ones.

Defying your government's orders is easier said than done, even if your life is at risk.