In Christian Appy’s article, he explains that the war in Vietnam was a “working-class war” because the men fighting and dying in Vietnam were primarily working-class men. Appy argues this point by comparing the recruitment numbers and deaths of urban working-class neighborhoods such as Dorchester, Massachusetts to suburban upper-middle class and wealthy neighborhoods. Disproportionate numbers of draft-age men from small, agricultural towns also served in Vietnam. Appy gives a few examples of these towns, one of them being Storden, Minnesota (6 miles from my house – I worked at a diner there in high school!). Of Storden’s 364 residents in the 1960s, five or six men served. Plus, my great-uncle Merle—a poor farmhand born and raised in Storden—served three tours in Vietnam and lived, so Storden was sending more men to Vietnam than the men who died. Whereas in Mountain Brook, a wealthier division outside of Birmingham, Alabama, “No one from Mountain Brook is listed among the Vietnam War dead” (Appy 255). That working-class men in cities or rural towns made up the majority of the men who served in Vietnam compared to white-collar draft-age men or college students is what brings Appy to his argument that “America’s most unpopular war was fought primarily by the nineteen-year-old children of waitresses, factory workers, truck drivers, secretaries, firefighters, carpenters, custodians, police officers, salespeople, clerks, mechanics, miners, and farmworkers” (Appy 252). By illustrating the demographics of enlistees, one may question whether the government was more willing to sacrifice the life of a small-town mechanic or an urban factory worker rather than that of a student enrolled in medical school who spends holidays at his parents house in the safe, white picket-fence suburb. The future-doctor would have easily been able to get a deferment to finish his degree before being shipped over to Vietnam. The mechanic, on the other hand, would have known that if he didn’t enlist on his own accord, the draft would potentially entrap him, leaving him without much of a say about where and what he does in the military. Appy concludes that “Vietnam can be divided into three categories of roughly equal size: one-third draftees, one-third draft-motivated volunteers, and one-third true volunteers” (Appy 261). Without the possibility of a deferment and under draft-pressure, working-class men from working-class families came to represent the majority of Vietnam soldiers and veterans. It was a war started by white-collar politicians and fought by blue-collar boys who barely had time to become men.
In Gerard DeGroot’s article, rather than taking a microscope to the societal classes that Vietnam soldiers came from, he looks more closely at what happened to the soldiers when they actually got to Vietnam. He writes of the propaganda that justified the war in Vietnam, roping in “green” soldiers who were wholly unprepared for the conditions they were about to be thrown into. Not only were the conditions in Vietnam atrocious—booby traps, guerilla warfare, disease—the men serving in Vietnam were not appreciated back home. The war did not seem just. These men knew they weren’t fighting to protect freedom like the WWII participants were. With about ⅔ of the men serving in Vietnam being draftees or draft-motivated enlistees, most men did not have an innate sense of motivation. There was no incentive to go to Vietnam. This was evident as men were more interested in saving themselves and their friends rather than gaining an abstract victory for their country. DeGroot writes, “Troops often performed best when rescuing wounded soldiers” (DeGroot 265). With the “long-haired hippies” (W. D. Ehrhart 267)—John Lennon was their poster child—protesting Vietnam back home and the politicians knowingly tricking young men into thinking there was a point to the war, the low morale led these men to contempt for their fellow Americans who didn’t know what it was like to walk in the jungle and worry about a stake impaling your foot. DeGroot writes, “The decline in morale eroded the soldier’s respect for authority” (DeGroot 267). The righteous politicians and hippies didn’t respect them, so they no longer felt responsible to show any respect back.
I don’t know a whole lot about the military today, but from what little I do know, I would lean toward yes, there is a class divide. The only reason I say that is because recruiters target high school students who aren’t planning on going to college. However, I also know a lot of people from wealthy families who used the military as a means of paying for their own school. That’s why I’m hesitant to give a definite yes or no.
Will Wright 