Americans in Combat

A “working class war”? What does this mean? To Christian Appy, the working class war was a socio economic divide. In the article Appy states that 80% of the soldiers of the Vietnam War were teenage soldiers that came from a poor or working class upbringing. More than any other war ever. While the rich families were able to avoid the war, and the draft. Young children from similar areas were pushed by schools and the workforce to take a different route, a route to a seemingly unwinnable war. It was said that the working class and soldiers of the U.S did the “dirty work” of the country, fighting the wars that the rich and politicians wanted to like aimless robots. It was almost like they were sacrifices for our country, search and destroy missions were brought to our military rolodex which forced young soldiers to attract enemy fire to them while searching villages. Calling for extreme amounts of danger. Coincidentally it tended to be kids from the same neighborhoods who went to war together, the low income neighborhoods with families who couldn't fight the government's unjust decisions. Due to unusual war tactics, it resulted in soldiers withdrawing themselves from the war, indulging in alcohol and drugs and avoiding duties placed upon them. One reason for the low morale of these soldiers is a result from the high death toll of Vietnamese with no regard from high command whether they were combatants or civilians. The young soldiers did not believe what they were doing was right, and had anger towards the people they believed responsible for the demographic discrimination.  
Personally I do believe that a class divide still exists in the military today. To my knowledge this is because low-income students are still underrepresented in college attendance compared to their wealthier peers, and they are more likely to attend community colleges or less selective institutions. This directly impacts a divide in the military, because with a college degree you are able to attend the military straight into officer training due to your education levels. While people who don't have similar access to resources that facilitate college entry have to go through much more grueling efforts to reach that status.