5 ms·

The US military thought a lot about how to entertain its soldiers because there was a lot of downtime during a war and most of them were draftees who didn't nec

The US military thought a lot about how to entertain its soldiers because there was a lot of downtime during a war and most of them were draftees who didn't necessarily want to be there, Another thing they did was publish pocket paperback editions of books back when paperbacks were less common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Services_Editions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Services_Editions

throw93949449 4mo ago
[flagged]
- multjoy 4mo ago
  It wasn’t slavery as they were paid and could be expected to be discharged at the cessation of hostilities. Conscription is as old as society itself.
  - throe94944i 4mo ago
    [dead]
  - freedomben 4mo ago
    You're both right. We don't want to water down the term "slavery" by using it for draftees, but it is a form of temporary slavery. Slave's have always been "paid" in the form of room and board (however meager), but it's still slavery.
  - danaris 4mo ago
    I mean, to be fair, so is slavery. I think it's important to acknowledge that conscription is a violation of human rights, and absolutely a violation of human autonomy and dignity. The reason it exists is because historically, the primary source of military power has been the number of armed humans you can put on the battlefield. That's much less true now, but even in WWII the technology wasn't yet up to that point. And while the US did not end up being materially at risk in WWII (aside from some very small exceptions like Pearl Harbor), that was not a guarantee going in. The Nazis were hellbent on wiping out all opposition to them, and the fear that, if Europe was lost, they would cross the ocean to attack us was not at all crazy. Furthermore, our allies absolutely were under existential threat—and in such a situation, it's frankly irresponsible of a nation not to use conscription if that's actually likely to make a difference. Either saying "conscription is slavery, therefore it is never justifiable" or "conscription is nothing like slavery, soldiers get treated well" ignores enough of the truth that they're misleading at best. Sometimes you really do have to deal with nuance.
    - dmbrThnYou 4mo ago
      You have the option to emigrate as opposed to fight, which is fundamentally what differentiates conscription from slavery (and human rights violations). You're not legally obligated to stay in your country.
      - danaris 4mo ago
        Um...what? Desertion has, historically, been a capital crime. Trying to paint conscription as not being a kind of captivity because "you're not legally obligated to stay in your country" is at best wildly disingenuous, and at worst just flat-out wrong. I think you might need to take quite a bit more time to consider this issue, lest you prove your username much truer than you probably want.
        dmbrThnYou 4mo ago
        You can absolutely emigrate prior to the conscription coming to fruition. It has to be permanent, or it's draft evasion, but it is perfectly legal. Sorry for the edits confusing things. I can see earlier how you thought I meant desertion as opposed to emigration.
        danaris 4mo ago
        Most people do not have the ability to emigrate. Hell, a great many people barely have the economic ability to move across their own state, but emigration requires that the country you're trying to move to is willing to let you live and work there permanently. I don't know if you're familiar with the difficulties involved in this, but I can assure you they are significant. Dismissing the loss of freedom inherent in conscription by saying you can avoid it by abandoning your entire life, leaving your country, your job, probably your family behind...even if you do have both the money and a legal path to immigrate somewhere else, which, again, most people do not, that's hardly a reasonable alternative.
        pfdietz 4mo ago
        > Desertion has, historically, been a capital crime. And it remained so for the US in WW2, although the sentence was carried out just once. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik Major General Norman "Dutch" Cota, who was at the execution, called it "the toughest 15 minutes of his life". For context, Cota was also present at the bloodbath on Omaha Beach, where he famously rallied troops.
  - crote 4mo ago
    > It wasn’t slavery as they were paid Being paid some amount of money doesn't magically make it not slavery. Obvious counterpoint: what if a plantation owner "paid" each slave a single modern-day penny a year, would that make it okay? > and could be expected to be discharged at the cessation of hostilities Being let go when you're no longer needed doesn't stop it being slavery either. Would you no longer be a slave if the plantation owner released you after the harvest season? You'd just be re-captured for the next harvest, of course - either by the same owner or a different one. > Conscription is as old as society itself. So is slavery. That doesn't make it okay. Definitions of forced labour, like the ILO Forced Labour Convention of 1930 for example, have to explicitly include "by the way, it's totally okay if it is done as part of mandatory military service" clauses for a reason. There are obviously differences between traditional slavery and conscription, but conscription is still way closer to forced labour than it is to consensual service. Just look at what happens when you try to leave, for one!
    - downrightmike 4mo ago
      Last slave was freed in the USA in 1973. Slave masters kept charging for anything and racking up the debt, so they'd never be free
- dctoedt 4mo ago
  > It is called forced labour or slavery. In war, people who tolerate military conscription and discipline will conquer those who're slaves to pigheaded "you're not the boss of ME!" individualism. It'd be nice if humans would voluntarily abandon war someday. But a corollary of the First Commandment is to face facts.
  - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
    That doesn't make it not forced though. Most of this sub thread people who are unwilling to say "yeah it's forced labor and that's fine considering the details" doing mental gymnastics to make it not forced.
    - derektank 4mo ago
      Just because something is forced, doesn’t make it slavery. I’m forced to pay taxes; that doesn’t make me a slave. Nor was a tenant farmer in the Middle Ages when required to provide corvée. I think the primary objection in this thread is to the use of the word slavery, which is simply not the same thing.
      - bloomingeek 4mo ago
        I agree with your account, the problem is how many perceive slavery. Here in the south (USA) many still think the slaves before the Civil War were "happy". They obviously weren't slaves. Until ALL mankind looks slavery fully in the eye for understanding, we will continue to undervalue those other then ourselves.
        cwmoore 4mo ago
        I don’t think there can be a bright line between acceptable and unacceptable coercion of liberties.
        throw734848 4mo ago
        [dead]
- TomK32 4mo ago
  In peacetimes, yes, but if it's defensive war I don't see many arguments against a draft, it can't be generalized though.
  - crote 4mo ago
    If there's anything worth defending, people will volunteer to defend it.
    - p-e-w 4mo ago
      Indeed, and there are many historical examples of this. Today’s average Western nation-state tends to be a rathole that spits into the faces of its citizens every single day, until the moment the state is under attack, at which point everyone is told that they owe their lives to their sacred motherland that has done so much for them.
    - esafak 4mo ago
      What if people do but not in enough numbers? Farewell, sweet country!
      - WJW 4mo ago
        If the country doesn't have enough people to defend it, perhaps it's good and just that some other community gets to control the territory? A country isn't really anything except for its people, after all.
        esafak 4mo ago
        The occupying power may be interested in your country's resources rather than its people.
        WJW 4mo ago
        How does that change matters? If anything that makes it even worse. If not enough of your people can't be bothered to join the military even when an enemy army is invading, perhaps the country in question should draw the conclusion it's not viable as an independent nation.
- Jcampuzano2 4mo ago
  Not sure why this is being downvoted. A draft is by definition forced labor and a form of slavery. If you are drafted, you are being forced to do something you did not volunteer for. If enough people volunteered there would be no need for a draft in the first place. People can argue whether they think its "correct" or not all day, its still forced labor.
- mr_toad 4mo ago
  If you’re not conscripted to fight the invaders, there’s always the risk that you’ll be conscripted by the invaders.
  - IAmBroom 4mo ago
    Neither is moral.
    - mr_toad 4mo ago
      What part of war is ever moral?
leoc 4mo ago
There were also the 2,400 specially-designed upright pianos it bought from Steinway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Vertical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Vertical .
jeffbee 4mo ago
My favorite WW2 morale detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge
- pasc1878 4mo ago
  The British did better Put beer into drop tanks on Spitfires https://planehistoria.com/flying-pubs-spitfires-flew-beer-to-normandy/ https://planehistoria.com/flying-pubs-spitfires-flew-beer-to...
  - zulux 4mo ago
    That still happens in America. Hike to a remote place, and get your friend to drop a keg in a mountain lake from his plane. "Alpine Lake Keg Drop".
  - topgrain2 4mo ago
    > When we get over the beachhead drop out of formation and land on the strip. We’re told the Nazis are fouling the drinking water, so it will be appreciated. There’s no trouble finding the strip, the battleship Rodney is firing salvoes on Caen and it’s immediately below. Oh god. Yeah just follow the path of the 9 x 16" gun salvos from Rodney blowing big-ass holes in the ground, you can't miss it. LOL. Now those are some directions!
  - tracerbulletx 4mo ago
    Even though this is tongue in cheek, an ice cream barge with the requisite refrigeration and dedication of ship space 1000s of miles out in the south pacific is on a whole different scale of investment than this and they also had beer on the ships already. Though it probably wasn't as good as the british beer.
    - pasc1878 4mo ago
      The British also had a brewery on a ship for use in the Pacific https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Menestheus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Menestheus
1313ed01 4mo ago
I like this boardgame kit that the Germans printed for their soldiers: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082557 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082557

throw93949449 4mo ago

[flagged]

multjoy 4mo ago
It wasn’t slavery as they were paid and could be expected to be discharged at the cessation of hostilities. Conscription is as old as society itself.
- throe94944i 4mo ago
  [dead]
- freedomben 4mo ago
  You're both right. We don't want to water down the term "slavery" by using it for draftees, but it is a form of temporary slavery. Slave's have always been "paid" in the form of room and board (however meager), but it's still slavery.
- danaris 4mo ago
  I mean, to be fair, so is slavery. I think it's important to acknowledge that conscription is a violation of human rights, and absolutely a violation of human autonomy and dignity. The reason it exists is because historically, the primary source of military power has been the number of armed humans you can put on the battlefield. That's much less true now, but even in WWII the technology wasn't yet up to that point. And while the US did not end up being materially at risk in WWII (aside from some very small exceptions like Pearl Harbor), that was not a guarantee going in. The Nazis were hellbent on wiping out all opposition to them, and the fear that, if Europe was lost, they would cross the ocean to attack us was not at all crazy. Furthermore, our allies absolutely were under existential threat—and in such a situation, it's frankly irresponsible of a nation not to use conscription if that's actually likely to make a difference. Either saying "conscription is slavery, therefore it is never justifiable" or "conscription is nothing like slavery, soldiers get treated well" ignores enough of the truth that they're misleading at best. Sometimes you really do have to deal with nuance.
  - dmbrThnYou 4mo ago
    You have the option to emigrate as opposed to fight, which is fundamentally what differentiates conscription from slavery (and human rights violations). You're not legally obligated to stay in your country.
    - danaris 4mo ago
      Um...what? Desertion has, historically, been a capital crime. Trying to paint conscription as not being a kind of captivity because "you're not legally obligated to stay in your country" is at best wildly disingenuous, and at worst just flat-out wrong. I think you might need to take quite a bit more time to consider this issue, lest you prove your username much truer than you probably want.
      - dmbrThnYou 4mo ago
        You can absolutely emigrate prior to the conscription coming to fruition. It has to be permanent, or it's draft evasion, but it is perfectly legal. Sorry for the edits confusing things. I can see earlier how you thought I meant desertion as opposed to emigration.
        danaris 4mo ago
        Most people do not have the ability to emigrate. Hell, a great many people barely have the economic ability to move across their own state, but emigration requires that the country you're trying to move to is willing to let you live and work there permanently. I don't know if you're familiar with the difficulties involved in this, but I can assure you they are significant. Dismissing the loss of freedom inherent in conscription by saying you can avoid it by abandoning your entire life, leaving your country, your job, probably your family behind...even if you do have both the money and a legal path to immigrate somewhere else, which, again, most people do not, that's hardly a reasonable alternative.
      - pfdietz 4mo ago
        > Desertion has, historically, been a capital crime. And it remained so for the US in WW2, although the sentence was carried out just once. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik Major General Norman "Dutch" Cota, who was at the execution, called it "the toughest 15 minutes of his life". For context, Cota was also present at the bloodbath on Omaha Beach, where he famously rallied troops.
- crote 4mo ago
  > It wasn’t slavery as they were paid Being paid some amount of money doesn't magically make it not slavery. Obvious counterpoint: what if a plantation owner "paid" each slave a single modern-day penny a year, would that make it okay? > and could be expected to be discharged at the cessation of hostilities Being let go when you're no longer needed doesn't stop it being slavery either. Would you no longer be a slave if the plantation owner released you after the harvest season? You'd just be re-captured for the next harvest, of course - either by the same owner or a different one. > Conscription is as old as society itself. So is slavery. That doesn't make it okay. Definitions of forced labour, like the ILO Forced Labour Convention of 1930 for example, have to explicitly include "by the way, it's totally okay if it is done as part of mandatory military service" clauses for a reason. There are obviously differences between traditional slavery and conscription, but conscription is still way closer to forced labour than it is to consensual service. Just look at what happens when you try to leave, for one!
  - downrightmike 4mo ago
    Last slave was freed in the USA in 1973. Slave masters kept charging for anything and racking up the debt, so they'd never be free
dctoedt 4mo ago
> It is called forced labour or slavery. In war, people who tolerate military conscription and discipline will conquer those who're slaves to pigheaded "you're not the boss of ME!" individualism. It'd be nice if humans would voluntarily abandon war someday. But a corollary of the First Commandment is to face facts.
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago
  That doesn't make it not forced though. Most of this sub thread people who are unwilling to say "yeah it's forced labor and that's fine considering the details" doing mental gymnastics to make it not forced.
  - derektank 4mo ago
    Just because something is forced, doesn’t make it slavery. I’m forced to pay taxes; that doesn’t make me a slave. Nor was a tenant farmer in the Middle Ages when required to provide corvée. I think the primary objection in this thread is to the use of the word slavery, which is simply not the same thing.
    - bloomingeek 4mo ago
      I agree with your account, the problem is how many perceive slavery. Here in the south (USA) many still think the slaves before the Civil War were "happy". They obviously weren't slaves. Until ALL mankind looks slavery fully in the eye for understanding, we will continue to undervalue those other then ourselves.
      - cwmoore 4mo ago
        I don’t think there can be a bright line between acceptable and unacceptable coercion of liberties.
      - throw734848 4mo ago
        [dead]
TomK32 4mo ago
In peacetimes, yes, but if it's defensive war I don't see many arguments against a draft, it can't be generalized though.
- crote 4mo ago
  If there's anything worth defending, people will volunteer to defend it.
  - p-e-w 4mo ago
    Indeed, and there are many historical examples of this. Today’s average Western nation-state tends to be a rathole that spits into the faces of its citizens every single day, until the moment the state is under attack, at which point everyone is told that they owe their lives to their sacred motherland that has done so much for them.
  - esafak 4mo ago
    What if people do but not in enough numbers? Farewell, sweet country!
    - WJW 4mo ago
      If the country doesn't have enough people to defend it, perhaps it's good and just that some other community gets to control the territory? A country isn't really anything except for its people, after all.
      - esafak 4mo ago
        The occupying power may be interested in your country's resources rather than its people.
        WJW 4mo ago
        How does that change matters? If anything that makes it even worse. If not enough of your people can't be bothered to join the military even when an enemy army is invading, perhaps the country in question should draw the conclusion it's not viable as an independent nation.
Jcampuzano2 4mo ago
Not sure why this is being downvoted. A draft is by definition forced labor and a form of slavery. If you are drafted, you are being forced to do something you did not volunteer for. If enough people volunteered there would be no need for a draft in the first place. People can argue whether they think its "correct" or not all day, its still forced labor.
mr_toad 4mo ago
If you’re not conscripted to fight the invaders, there’s always the risk that you’ll be conscripted by the invaders.
- IAmBroom 4mo ago
  Neither is moral.
  - mr_toad 4mo ago
    What part of war is ever moral?

leoc 4mo ago

There were also the 2,400 specially-designed upright pianos it bought from Steinway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Vertical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Vertical .

jeffbee 4mo ago

My favorite WW2 morale detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge

pasc1878 4mo ago
The British did better Put beer into drop tanks on Spitfires https://planehistoria.com/flying-pubs-spitfires-flew-beer-to-normandy/ https://planehistoria.com/flying-pubs-spitfires-flew-beer-to...
- zulux 4mo ago
  That still happens in America. Hike to a remote place, and get your friend to drop a keg in a mountain lake from his plane. "Alpine Lake Keg Drop".
- topgrain2 4mo ago
  > When we get over the beachhead drop out of formation and land on the strip. We’re told the Nazis are fouling the drinking water, so it will be appreciated. There’s no trouble finding the strip, the battleship Rodney is firing salvoes on Caen and it’s immediately below. Oh god. Yeah just follow the path of the 9 x 16" gun salvos from Rodney blowing big-ass holes in the ground, you can't miss it. LOL. Now those are some directions!
- tracerbulletx 4mo ago
  Even though this is tongue in cheek, an ice cream barge with the requisite refrigeration and dedication of ship space 1000s of miles out in the south pacific is on a whole different scale of investment than this and they also had beer on the ships already. Though it probably wasn't as good as the british beer.
  - pasc1878 4mo ago
    The British also had a brewery on a ship for use in the Pacific https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Menestheus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Menestheus

1313ed01 4mo ago

I like this boardgame kit that the Germans printed for their soldiers: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082557 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082557