1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910822758303321

Autore

Rutenberg Amy J.

Titolo

Rough Draft : Cold War Military Manpower Policy and the Origins of Vietnam-Era Draft Resistance / / Amy J. Rutenberg

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, NY : , : Cornell University Press, , [2019]

©2019

ISBN

1-5017-3958-1

1-5017-3937-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (276 pages)

Collana

Cornell scholarship online

Disciplina

355.22363097309045

Soggetti

Manpower policy - United States - History - 20th century

Draft - United States - History - 20th century

United States Armed Forces Recruiting, enlistment, etc

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2019.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Selective Service Classification Chart (1951-1973) -- Introduction -- 1. "Digging for Deferments": World War II, 1940-1945 -- 2. "To Rub Smooth the Sharp Edges": Universal Military Training, 1943-1951 -- 3. "Really First-Class Men": The Early Cold War, 1948-1953 -- 4. "A Draft-Dodging Business": Manpower Channeling, 1955-1965 -- 5. "The Most Important Human Salvage Operation in the History of our Country": The War on Poverty, 1961-1969 -- 6. "Choice or Chance": The Vietnam War, 1965-1973 -- Conclusion -- List of Abbreviations -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Rough Draft draws the curtain on the race and class inequities of the Selective Service during the Vietnam War. Amy J. Rutenberg argues that policy makers' idealized conceptions of Cold War middle-class masculinity directly affected whom they targeted for conscription and also for deferment. Federal officials believed that college educated men could protect the nation from the threat of communism more effectively as civilians than as soldiers. The availability of deferments for this group mushroomed between 1945 and 1965, making it less and less likely that middle-class white men would serve in the Cold War army. Meanwhile, officials used the War on Poverty to target poorer and



racialized men for conscription in the hopes that military service would offer them skills they could use in civilian life.As Rutenberg shows, manpower policies between World War II and the Vietnam War had unintended consequences. While some men resisted military service in Vietnam for reasons of political conscience, most did so because manpower polices made it possible. By shielding middle-class breadwinners in the name of national security, policymakers militarized certain civilian roles-a move that, ironically, separated military service from the obligations of masculine citizenship and, ultimately, helped kill the draft in the United States.