The rotation policy eventually spawned a lexicon of its own. One of the most derisive labels of the Vietnam War was the one given to the newest members of a unit — ‘f—in’ new guy’ (FNG for short). The label illustrated the sense of alienation, fear and isolation that a new soldier felt when first arriving to a unit filled with bloodied veterans. For their part, the ‘old timers’ counted the days to their DEROS (Date of Expected Return from Overseas), when they would finally escape the surreal world of combat in Vietnam.

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Given the corrosive aspects of the policy, why did the Army insist on one-year rotations?

In the tumultuous years following World War II, the United States found itself squaring off against an implacable foe, a powerful and expansive Soviet Union. The American people, for the first time in the nation’s history, accepted a large standing military and, by extension, a peacetime draft required to support it. The Cold War found American troops posted to desolate and isolated hot spots around the world, including Vietnam.

By 1965 the draft was deeply embedded in the fabric of American society. That same year, President Lyndon B. Johnson faced a crucial decision as he grappled with the growing crisis in Vietnam. The Viet Cong, increasingly aided by North Vietnamese regulars infiltrating south, were gradually gaining the upper hand. General William C. Westmoreland needed more troops to win in Vietnam — a lot more troops. That meant expanding the draft. Conscription legislation limited a draftee’s tour of duty to two years. With a soldier’s initial training lasting anywhere from four to six months plus a month or two of transportation time and one month of accrued leave earned for every year in the service, there was little more than a year remaining in a draftee’s tour of duty for service overseas.

Once Johnson made the decision to commit American ground forces into Vietnam, the follow-on questions were inevitable: How many troops were needed, and where would they come from? For the Pentagon brass, the answers were obvious. In order to win the war, they would need more than 1 million additional men, requiring a call-up of the National Guard and Reserve.

Harold K. Johnson, the Army’s chief of staff, was a leading advocate for this approach. In late 1964, he tried to convince President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara that up to four divisions should be used to seal off the border between North and South Vietnam all the way to the Mekong River. This implied that the war would have to be extended into Laos and, according to General Johnson, also necessitated a full-scale mobilization. Calling up the Guard and Reserve, he argued, ‘would show the American people we were serious.’ Conversely, he was convinced that if the reserves were not called up, ‘the quality of the Army is going to erode and we’re going to suffer very badly,’ a conviction he stated to McNamara. By May of 1965, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were united in their conviction that the nation’s reserves must be mobilized in order to find enough troops for the war in Vietnam.

President Johnson was adamantly opposed to their recommendation, and brusquely told the chief of staff: ‘General, you leave the American people to me. I know more about the American people than anyone in this room.’ That hardly settled the matter, for LBJ’s chief advisers continued to debate the issue over the next several months. Most of those in uniform favored calling up the Reserve components, while McNamara and key voices in Congress were opposed. In order to fight a hot war in Vietnam plus a Cold War simultaneously, the latter group argued, the nation’s regular forces would have to be expanded by increasing the draft.

Ultimately, President Johnson elected not to mobilize the Reserve and National Guard. To do otherwise, he feared, would only lead to a fierce debate in Congress about the merits of the war, a debate he very much wanted to avoid for fear it would derail his domestic agenda, especially the war on poverty. Better to fight the Vietnam War with the Regular Army, a force increasingly manned by draftees.

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