Re: American draftees--poor physical condition?

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:12:25 -0400, hancock4@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

In several histories (including Omar Bradley's) it says American young
men drafted for the military were "soft", out of shape, and needed to
be toughened up for military service. They also suffered from poor
nutrition and medical care.

I can well understand poor nutrition and medical care as a result of
coming out of the Depression.

Poor nutrition, poor hygene, poor medical attention were endemic in
this country long before the depression. The folks you are talking
about grew up, in many instances, without electricity and all the
things like refrigeration and such that go along with it.

However, I'm a bit surprised that so many guys were deemed "soft" given
the way of life back then. (Today, with computers and video games I
could understand it.)

In those days, most people did physical work for a living . . .

This is, perhaps, more directly attributible to the depression. Many
youths were not working at all because there was little work to be
found and most of that went to adult breadwinners. Also, city kids may
well have been growing up "soft" as there were virtually no organized
atletics and the need for exercise was not yet well understood.

Only the wealthy could go to college.

This is far from true. Many of my father's friends have stories of
going to work for a year or two to afford a year of college and taking
their four years over a decase. The middle class as well as the rich
could manage college.

.

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