Rough Draft - by Amy J Rutenberg (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Rough Draft draws the curtain on the race and class inequities of the Selective Service during the Vietnam War. Amy J. Rutenberg argues that policy makers' idealized conceptions of Cold War middle-class masculinity directly affected whom they targeted for conscription and also for deferment. Federal officials believed that college educated men could protect the nation from the threat of communism more effectively as civilians than as soldiers. The availability of deferments for this group mushroomed between 1945 and 1965, making it less and less likely that middle-class white men would serve in the Cold War army. Meanwhile, officials used the War on Poverty to target poorer and racialized men for conscription in the hopes that military service would offer them skills they could use in civilian life.
As Rutenberg shows, manpower policies between World War II and the Vietnam War had unintended consequences. While some men resisted military service in Vietnam for reasons of political conscience, most did so because manpower polices made it possible. By shielding middle-class breadwinners in the name of national security, policymakers militarized certain civilian roles--a move that, ironically, separated military service from the obligations of masculine citizenship and, ultimately, helped kill the draft in the United States.

Review Quotes

Rough Draft offers an invaluable model for how scholars might think about the subtle ways in which militarization has affected American society. In telling this story, Rutenberg confidently sketches over thirty years of policy in crisp and lucid prose.

Rutenberg has provided an exceptionally clear, interesting, and readable account of Vietnam-era draft avoidance and how it was actually abetted by the very governmental officials charged with bringing men into uniform.

Rutenberg's report that men's military participation rates in the 1940s were due more to the draft than patriotism will surprise many students; her use of that conclusion to debunk the myth of 'the greatest generation' unsettles the conventional wisdom that sixties-generation men were self-interested shirkers.

This outstanding work by Amy Rutenberg surveys the Selective Service before the Vietnam War.

Throughout this well-written work, Rutenberg weaves issues of class, race, masculinity, citizenship, and state authority... She convincingly argues that draft avoidance during the Vietnam era emerged from deliberate post-World War II government policies.

About the Author

Amy J. Rutenberg is Assistant Professor of History at Iowa State University. Follow her on X @amyjay401.