'Why We Did It' The Iraq War

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

I don't think it's that low, but the percentage of vets certainly isn't what it was when I was growing up in the 1950's. Then almost every adult male you met was a vet.

First off, we had a draft then. Now we have an all-volunteer armed force. Also, in the '50s, we had huge numbers of people who were veterans of WW2 and Korea. Those factors combined meant that a very large percentage of able-bodied adult males had served.

John