Abstract
This chapter reveals how direct U.S. military engagement in the Vietnam War, most conspicuously beginning in 1965, elevated U.S. force levels and intensified use of the draft. Such a momentous policy change occurred amid the baby boom generation coming of age. These twin developments combined to place the inequity of the draft front and center in American society. The Johnson administration also sought to connect military service to its broader vision of the Great Society. The most prominent, and controversial, example was Project 100,000. Another major effort related to the draft during the Johnson administration was the Department of Defense (DOD) draft study. Around the same time, President Johnson created the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service. Burke Marshall, former assistant attorney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division during the Kennedy administration, led that effort, which quickly bore his name. Neither the Marshall Commission nor the Johnson administration’s unflinching support of the draft stifled festering antagonism toward its continuation. Instead, the renewal of the draft in 1967 for another 4 years, an event that had repeatedly occurred for 20 years with little uproar, intensified its unpopularity.
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