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This radiolab podcast goes into detail of men deciding to do nothing on both sides in WWI, but it got complicated really fast: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podc

• commandlinefan 7y ago
  The whole “white feather” campaign during WWI (women would hand unenlisted young men a “white feather” which was understood to represent cowardice and shame men into enlisting) really contrasts with the unemployment that British soldiers faced after the war: “no former servicemen need apply” was a common warning on shops in the early 20’s. They were treated like garbage before the war, during the war, and after it, too.
  • TurkishPoptart 7y ago
    Why were they discriminated against after the war? In the US, former servicemen got the world handed to them on a silver platter.
    • Apocryphon 7y ago
      Not after the Vietnam War, so it seems like the near-veneration of veterans in the modern world didn't happen until fairly recently.
      • commandlinefan 7y ago
        That matches my father’s experience - he said he had to leave Virginia because nobody was hiring former sailors after Vietnam.