Was The Draft Unfair?

On August 7th 1964 the United States Congress passed into law the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which, for all intents and purposes, officially brought the United States into the Vietnam War. Following this resolution, a draft was instated to increase the number of men that could be sent to war. Shortly after men started to be signed into conscription for the United States Military, a public outcry started over the use of a draft to increase military size. The draft was found to be unfair to American Citizens because certain groups of men were severely disadvantaged, the draft was illegal in many ways, and veteran’s future lives were harmed, among other reasons.

Among the men that were conscripted into the supposedly random draft, certain groups of men were found to have been more likely to be called into service. Using statistical analysis it was found that "A box plot of the data by months confirms the pattern: those born in the second half of the year tend to receive lower lottery numbers." (Starr 1) The pattern that Star is referring to shows that, when a line is drawn using the mean values of the lottery number that men received over the course of twelve months, the line decreased over the time span. When Starr says that men with later birthdays receive a lower lottery number, he is basically pointing out that those men are called into service before the men with earlier birthdays. Had this been a truly random lottery, the data should have shown an equal distribution of lower and higher numbers between all of the days of the year. Not only did the draft discriminate against certain groups, the legality of it has been challenged numerous times.

Under United States draft law, certain guidelines must be followed to allow men to be...

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Starr, Nortan. "Nonrandom Risk: The 1970 Draft Lottery Norton Starr ." Journal of Statistics Education. N.p., 1997. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. .

Starr, Norton. "1970 Draft Lottery Data." University of Hong Kong, Economics Department. N.p., 21 Sept. 1998. Web. 4 Apr. 2011.

"Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam." Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam. N.p., 1994. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. .