In Christian Appy's, Working-Class War he states that out of the 3 million men deployed in the Vietnam War most of them were from blue-collar environments and only had a high school diploma. He also points out that black men fighting in the war were more likely to see battle and not make it to officer status. Throughout the assigned section to read, Appy clearly backs up these accusations and concludes that those with higher incomes were seldom drafted and officers were almost always white men. Appy strongly backs up his statement of the majority of the men sent to fight in Vietnam were young men from working-class homes. He brings up that three cities, Milton, Lexington, and Wellesley, had a total of 100,000 men deployed during the war. That is as much …show more content…
He even mentioned that the men of Dorchester "were four times more likely to die in Vietnam than those raised in fancy suburbs." Appy mentions that income alone was a determining factor in the differences between who was drafted. In Illinois, men who earned less than $5,000 a year were four times as likely to be killed in Vietnam then the men earning over $15,000 a year. Another example given by Appy was that of Talladega and Mountain Brook, Alabama. Talladega had a population of 17,500 during the war while Mountain Brook had around 19,500. Talladega was a blue-collar town, with most of its population working on farms or as textile workers. Mountain Brook was a very rich city just outside of Birmingham. Appy did not mention much more about the demographics of Mountain Brook, only that there were no black men in the town between the ages of 18-25. In Talladega, almost 12,000 of their men had graduated high school and Mountain Brook had just over 17,500. Throughout the war, Talladega lost fifteen men. Mountain Brook had no casualties. Appy does not mention how many of the men from each town were deployed. This would be important to know when comparing the number of