>How about expanding it instead? In the US the draft just allowed the US government to continue the Viet Nam war far longer than it otherwise would have gone.

>How about expanding it instead? In the US the draft just allowed the US government to continue the Viet Nam war far longer than it otherwise would have gone. Over 2.7 million Americans served in Viet Nam. If the politicians could have possibly gotten millions of young people to drop what they were doing and go 5 thousand miles to fight in a civil war in a country most had never heard of before, they would certainly have done so. There is simply no obvious way they could have gotten that many troops on a volunteer basis, or they would have done so. >...The Vietnam War protests ended when the draft ended. The war didn't end. Just the draft. Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. The war continued, but US involvement ended. Having a volunteer force means the soldiers have to treated better and paid more than a draftee. Having a volunteer force in the 1960s would have meant that if the USA got involved, the Viet Nam war would have been fought with a lot more concern for the loss of life of the solders, and it likely wouldn't have been fought anything like it was fought.