MOBILIZATION
FOR
THE
VIETNAM WAR:
A POLITICAL AND MILITARY CATASTROPHE
by
JOHN D. STUCKEY and JOSEPH H. PISTORIUS
NONMOBILIZATION IN
1965
The proposition that the National Guard
and Reserve would
be
called into active
federal service had been proven prior to
Vietnam in every major war. Even the Berlin
Crisis
of
1961
had witnessed the call-up
of
119,622 Guard and Reserve members.
Because
of
this historical perspective, there
was an unquestioned readiness to believe that
mobilization
of
the Guard and Reserve would
provide citizen-soldiers for the Vietnam War.
The first momentous year
of
the Viet-
nam War regarding Army manpower was
1965, when
44
combat battalions
of
the
United States and its allies were deployed to
South Vietnam, beginning 8 March. When
this buildup
of
ground combat forces began,
the Army National Guard (ARNG) and
US
Army Reserve (USAR) had a Ready Reserve
paid strength
of
695,000, organized into
23
divisions,
11
separate brigades, and some
8000 units.
4 The Regular Army had a strength
of
about 970,000 (with
42
percent
of
its
personnel deployed overseas), organized into
T
he
United States has relied extensively
on its Militia, National Guard, and
Reserves in every major war in its
history, except for the Vietnam War. That
only a diminutive mobilization occurred for
the Vietnam War was a remarkable departure
from American military history. This article
briefly reviews the reliance on the citizen-
soldier in major American wars, then
examines the extent to which the President
and his civilian and military advisers con-
sidered mobilization during the first three
years
of
the Vietnam ground war and the
rationale behind nonmobilization during that
period. We then focus on the
1968
call-up
of
Army National Guard and
US
Army Reserve
forces for the Vietnam War and the
characteristics and problems
of
that partial
mobilization.
The United States has never maintained
nor seriously considered maintaining during
peacetime a Regular Army
of
sufficient size
to meet the needs
of
war. The United States
has engaged in nine major wars, and
ex-
tensive reliance has been placed on the
citizen-soldier in the first eight
of
them. That
reliance
is
made clear in the following table.'
The first column
of
figures shows the
strength
of
the Regular Army at the begin-
ning of the wars listed; the second column
shows the number
of
Militia, Army National
Guard, and Army Reserve troops mobilized
for each.
Revolutionary
War
l
War
of
1812
Mexican
War
Spanish~American
War
World
War
I
World
War
III
Korean War
Vietnam
War
Initial Strength
o
6.744
7,365
28,183
127.588
187,893
591.487
970.000
Mobilized
250,000
458,000
73,532
170,954
208,000
377,000
382,900
22,786
26
Parameters,
Journal
of
the
US
Army
War
College
