The Forgotten Reason The US Ended The Military Draft

Assassination in the ranks

The United States ended the practice of conscription in 1973. The US backed off after years of compelling young men to take up arms for their country. Most people attribute this decision to the unpopularity of the Vietnam War, but the truth is much darker. While there were protests and draft dodgers at home, some of the men who were forced to deploy to Vietnam remained bitter and angry.

One problem that was infecting the ranks in Vietnam was the practice of fragging. Fragging was the intentional assassination (or attempted assassination) of officers who soldiers felt were putting their lives in danger or dared to enforce rigid discipline. Soldiers, often drunk or high on drugs, would pull the pin on their standard issue fragmentation grenade and toss it into the “hooch” where their superior officer was sleeping with the hopes of killing or maiming them. Fragging was a huge issue and one that the United States failed to get a grip on throughout the latter half of the Vietnam War.

Fragging Incidents

Fragging was not a fringe thing that happened once or twice. The United States internally acknowledged over 900 such incidents, with many of them resulting in fatalities. The threat of being fragged by their own men loomed heavily over many low level officers, and it prevented them from controlling their men. Without the ability to curb drug use, drinking, and lax discipline, many units devolved into party camps rather than military outposts.

Soldiers would use their standard-issue M26 hand grenades to commit the crime. They would simply pull the pin, stumble over to where their officer was hanging out (often sleeping), and toss the grenade. In many cases, the assassins would feel no regret for their actions and often would march triumphantly from the officer’s quarters, declaring, “I got him. I fragged the fucker.” The hope was that the military brass would think that the officer was hit by an enemy mortar or sapper team. Unfortunately, it was always apparent when an officer was killed by an American M26 grenade rather than its Chinese or Russian cousin.

Between 1971 and 1973, discipline and combat readiness steadily declined in the ranks in Vietnam. The threat of fragging was partly to blame. Many of the men “in country” at this point had no intention of being there. They didn’t want to fight, and they didn’t want to be the last sucker to die for a lost cause. Drug use spiked, with over half of all enlisted infantrymen partaking in marijuana use, with a fair few more using harder drugs. Heavy drinking was also endemic. If officers attempted to curtail the use of drugs, the threat of fragging was brought up.

In one instance recorded by Max Hastings in his excellent tome “Vietnam,” an officer tried to bring discipline back to his unit only to wake up to a note attached to his door in the morning.

We frag motherfuckers like you.

Needless to say, the officer's gungho attitude dropped off. The goal for many in Vietnam was not to uphold the standards of the United States or the mission and instead was simply to survive. The infantrymen wanted to survive their patrols, and the officers wanted to survive their men.

Drug use and drinking caused men’s inhibitions to drop, and those who were bitter, angry, or scared were likely to take matters into their own hands. In a haze of bitterness and drugs, many men decided they would rather face court martial and go home than stay one more day in Vietnam. The results were horrific and made it so that the individual officers on the ground had no way to do their jobs effectively.

Slow Response

To make matters worse, the United States government was slow to respond to the uptick in fraggings. Many incidents went unpunished, with men refusing to sell out their own. In other cases, handfuls of enlisted soldiers were arrested, only to be acquitted later by skittish tribunals who did not want to make matters worse.

In many cases, fraggings were racially motivated. White officers would mistreat or push their African American soldiers too far, inviting violence. Many of the African Americans assigned to poor units were miscreants who had ties to Black Power movements at home and harbored bitter hatred for their white officers and the government they represented.

The government was loathe to bring the hammer down on certain units, especially black units, fearing a general uprising or mutiny on the ground. That left dozens, if not hundreds, of would-be murderers to go free. Even the men who were court martialed rarely served more than three years for the assassination of their superior officer.

Officials quickly realized if they could not tamp down the violence on the ground, they had to take a different approach.

The End of the Draft

The solution that was proposed is the one that is still in place today. The military would become an all-volunteer force. No longer would 18-year-olds from poor economic backgrounds (poor and undereducated Americans were far more likely to be deployed than affluent or educated Americans) be forced to serve overseas in the military. If these people didn’t want to be there, they didn’t have to be.

Switching to a volunteer military caused some consternation during the Cold War but it was seen as a necessary step to prevent rampant drug use and assassinations from occurring in the ranks.

President Nixon signed legislation reforming the Selective Service System (the draft) on September 28, 1971. The program was implemented in 1973.

Today, young American men are still required to register for the Selective Service System, but the actual conscription of Americans has not occurred since Vietnam and is likely not to occur again in the foreseeable future.

Conclusion

Most people can link the unpopularity of the Vietnam War to the end of the Selective Service System, but few people know how dark and dangerous things had gotten in the camps nestled in the Indochinese jungle. Fragging was common. Tension and strife between enlisted soldiers and officers were rampant. Racial tension between whites and blacks was rampant. Drug use was rampant. The situation was out of control, and indeed, the United States never managed to effectively get these types of behavior under control in Vietnam between 1970 and 1973. Instead of reeling in the men on the ground, the government instead decided to end the draft. In the meantime, over 900 officers were maimed or killed by fragging attacks during the same period.

Most of the time, the families were never informed that their son was killed by their own men. Killed by a US issued grenade tossed into their tent when they were sleeping. There are likely still families out there whose relatives were killed by intentional friendly fire and have no idea what actually happened.