About 30 percent of men born between 1940 and 1957 are veterans. Despite this, there are relatively few studies on military service in the existing economic literature. Of those that do exist, almost all are focused on earnings. This dissertation extends the existing literature by investigating non-monetary impacts of active duty service: job quality and disability. Also, I look at the effects of draft avoidance behavior on children born during the height of the Vietnam War draft.

I begin the dissertation with an introduction in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 covers earnings and job quality of Vietnam Veterans. Chapter 3 investigates the long-term impact of Vietnam War military service on disability. The fourth chapter examines the effect of draft avoidance behaviors on the children born during the Vietnam War draft. I conclude the dissertation with Chapter 5 and summarize the findings.

My results indicate that black veterans of the Vietnam War have higher earnings, better jobs, and are more likely to be disabled than their non-veteran counterparts. White Vietnam War veterans have no difference in earnings or job quality and while they are more likely to be disabled, the magnitude is small relative to that found for black veterans. The results in chapter 4 show there were negative effects on children caused by draft avoidance behavior. All the results show that blacks and whites were affected differently by the Vietnam War and the draft.