That generation got paid $45 an hour in today’s value.
Federal minimum wage in 1965 was $1.25/h, which is $12.69/h today. Looks like Alaska had the highest state minimum at $2.10, $21.32 today. Or were you taking more average rather than minimum wage?
They never said anything about minimum wage.
Are you thinking of a particular source? I couldn’t find substantiation for $45/h.
I calculated this a few years ago, but It shouldnt’ve changed much. Take the year 1960 or whichever year that you can get all the following reliable information: Minimum wage, and median two bed house cost/sale price, for the specific area or state.
The minimum wage in my area in 1955 was equivalent to double what it is now, and with the housing market (and omitting tax because it’s too dynamic) minimum wage then was enough to earn a house’s value in four years. To earn the equivalent house’s value before tax in the next four years, in my area, minimum wage must more than treble to $45/h. (to get $360,000)
Graphing the min wage with house costs between 1955, 1985 and 2015 shows an exponentially increasing slope which, if no market crash happens, will continue. As it is, factoring the cost of living and taxes, it would take over 100 years to buy a house on $15/h.
There is no war in Vietnam
They were calling citizens in alternating groups of SSNs like a lottery. When it was my Dad’s buddy’s turn to show up for the medical he thought he’d fake extreme scoliosis, slouched one shoulder back and down, then half limped into the doctors office.
He was never even asked to take his shirt off and got excused on medical grounds.
How did you hear about this? Seems a bit odd he’d brag about it over 50 years later. Yeah, son, I faked a condition to get out of the war like a total coward. Don’t think I’m any less of a badass though. I’m still a total badass.
There’s nothing honorable on killing and dying for no reason.
My Dad did a student elective in New York in 1977 as part of his medical degree. Met a few friends he’s been lifelong pals with and he talks about then often.
This guy’s name is Al and they are still pen pals to this day. I think he was a philosophy major so my Dad was impressed he could fake a condition so well (aside from just being impressed by the ballsiness of lying to the authorities to avoid fighting in an unjust war).
Not wanting to bomb brown people in the name of fascism is quite a far cry from being a coward.
Vietnam should not have been invaded. Not wanting to participate in that shit show is just a reasonable moral decision.
I think if you asked the dude he’d admit he was doing it out of self-preservation as opposed to a moral stance.
He’s got a fascinating life story: His father was upper class in Russia in the early 20th C. and got drafted into the red army at the start of WW2 as an officer, but got captured by nazis and defected. When Berlin fell his father deserted, married the first German girl he saw and they emmigrated to the USA. My Dad’s friend was literally born on the boat over.
His father was highly educated but due to being in the two least popular armies in US history he had yearly visits from the intelligence services. Wasn’t allowed to get a good job and spent his entire life shifting chemical drums while the family grew up in poverty in New Jersey.
Self-preservation is a morally acceptable reason to not do something unless a reasonable case can be made that you should do that thing.
It’s not cowardly to not throw your life away for no good reason. Unless he had a moral reason to go, he had a moral right to not go.
Conscription produces bad soldiers and it’s morally reprehensible to conscript soldiers to invade a country that does not pose a threat to you.
Yeah I broadly agree. Idk when I was younger (and doing a lot more psychedelics) I had this idea that all soldiers were murders and being a conscientious objector was a moral imperative.
I’ve softened that view the older I’ve gotten but certain wars, like you point out, such as Vietnam or Iraq where the country isn’t posing a threat probably retain that same moral calculus.
It is different when your country is under threat like if you were Ukranian. However I’m not sure what I’d do if I were put in that situation. To be honest I might also try to chase self-preservation over anything else.
Yeah “all soldiers are murderers regardless of whom they fight for/against” is a level of delusional mushrooms I can only dream of. If I was Ukrainian, or even in a position to volunteer to fight in the foreign legion I would. It reminds me a bit of 1956 Hungary. Listening to their final radio broadcast, is to put it mildly, incredibly saddening. Fuck the USSR, and the tankie stupidity about it and their “tHe WeSt”
The 60s? Don’t have to fight in a war?
Are we just rewriting history to ignore Vietnam?
What % of the population actually fought in the war?
Page 45 of this PDF has a good chart. It shows that about 26.8 million men were draft eligible in that generation, and about 8.7 million enlisted, 2.2 million were drafted, and 16.0 million never served, including about 570,000 apparent draft dodgers.
About 2.1 million actually went to Vietnam, and about 1.55 million were in combat roles in Vietnam. 51,000 were killed.
So roughly:
- 41% of that generation of men were in the military
- 8% of that generation went to Vietnam
- 6% of that generation fought in Vietnam
- About 0.2% of that generation died in Vietnam
I guess that depends how poor and black they were.
Not enough to win it
Don’t mind me, just thinking about how peaceful Americans were between 1949 and 1965
Yeah north korea what an amazing place to live
do you have an intellectual disability???
Yeah north korea what an amazing place to live
all these pussies breaking ankles and citing bone spurs know a real man shits his pants right in front of the officer
Oh woops i broke my ankle and an anti war doctor said I’ll never walk again.
Oh woops I’m on extended vacation in Canada.
If you were not upper-middle class (or higher) and white, these really weren’t realistic options to avoid the draft.
Im continuing the idealistic boomer life we are talking about in this thread
Not everyone in the world is an American of course.
Picking up hitchhikers to Woodstock during the summer of '69 kind of narrows it down unless op was one of those maple syrup types.
This post describes an upper-middle class cishet white dude, and that’s it.
Maybe a modern upper-middle class cishet white dude.
The point is that, back then, anyone literally could afford a Plymouth Roadrunner after working a summer job for a month or two.
Yes, it was easier for just anyone to buy a car. Now do the rest of the stuff in that post. None of it was accessible to someone who wasn’t a upper-middle class cishet white dude in the late 60s.
